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LOST AMID THE FOGS. 



LOST AMID THE FOGS 

i 

SKETCHES OF LIFE 



NEWFOUNDLAND, 



ENGLAND'S ANCIENT COLONY. 



BY 

Lteut.-Col. R. B. M c CREA, 

4 » 

THE ROYAL ARTILLERY. 



" Thou ! 
Who sittest far beyond the Atlantic deep, 
Amid the sources of thy countless streams, 

A newer page 
In the great record of the world is thine : 
Shall it be fairer ? Fear, and friendly hope, 
And envy, watch the issue; while the lines, 
By which thou shalt be judged, are written down." 



LONDON: 
SAMPSON LOW, SON, & MAESTON, 

CROWN BUILDINGS. 188 FLEET STREET. 

1869. 

[All rights reserved,] 







EDINBURGH I 

PRINTED BY BALLI.ANTYNE AND C01IP.YNY, 

PAUL'S WORK. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTORY, 



CHAPTER I. THE HOME DESTROYED, 

„ II. " ON THE SAD SEA WAVE," 

„ III. HALIGONIAN, 

„ IV. INTO THE BREAST OF WINTER, 

,, V. UNDER THE BUFFALO ROBES, 

., VI. THE FIRST LIFTS OF THE FOG THE HOME 

RESTORED, 
„ VII. CREDIT AND DISCREDIT, 

„ VIII. MARTIAL AND POLITICAL, 
„ IX. THE KNELL FROM CATHEDRAL HILL, 

„ X. THE LAST DUEL IN NEWFOUNDLAND, 

,, XL THE ANGLICAN BRANCH OF THE CATHOLIC 

CHURCH, 

„ XII. SPRING THE ARGONAUTS OF THE NORTH, 

„ XIII. THE HARVESTS OF THE OCEAN, 

„ XIV. AUTUMN THE FIRST DAY OF THE SEASON, 

„ XV. AUTUMN — A " WITLESS " EXPEDITION, 

,, XVI. " THE ODD TRICK AND THE RUBBER," 

,, XVII. FAREWELL, ...... 



PAGE 

vii 
, 1 
9 
30 
41 
65 

72 

91 

105 

123 

136 

1(31 

182 
204 
227 
249 
269 
291 




INTRODUCTORY. 




YAGERS in the great ships, hourly pass- 
ing between England and America, sight 
about the sixth day out a black desolate 
headland connecting two strips of high scarped coast, 
which from this point fade away towards the distant 
horizons of the north and west. This is Cape Race, 
the southern extremity of Newfoundland, famous for 
telegraphic signals and awful shipwrecks. Beyond, 
there lies inland a vast stretch of barren, bog, forest, 
river, and lake, of a total area much about that of 
Ireland, and stocked with herds of deer preyed on 
by bears and wolves. Beavers are not extinct ; grouse 
and wild fowl abundant ; salmon and trout in places to 
be found in any quantity. Once these were the happy 
hunting-grounds of the Red Indian and the Mic-Mac. 



viii Introductory. 

The former has entirely disappeared, and the latter 
will probably soon follow the inevitable law of race. 

One European only has traversed this pathless in- 
terior from coast to coast. Could we but take a coup- 
d'oeil of what this man saw in months of toil, the map 
beneath would reflect at least one-third of water back 
to our gaze : while the remarkable feature would also 
present itself, that with lakes and connecting streams 
absolutely countless, not a single navigable river could 
anywhere be found. The cause of this phenomenon 
lies in the enormous coating of moss spread over the 
whole region. The masses of descending moisture are 
always first absorbed by this vast sponge, which slowly 
yields the produce to the lower levels. Great periodical 
floods, which would ordinarily deepen the channels of 
rivers, are therefore almost impossible ; neither have 
the streams from this cause strength to force the 
barriers of the hills and unite their waters. 

Numbers of fishing settlements dot the coast, wherever 
indeed nooks, bays, or creeks afford shelter. Passen- 
gers ask few questions about the country, seldom 
receiving satisfactory replies, as little is known about 
it. Men button up their peacoats with a shrug, and 
thank their stars they are passing on to more genial 



Introductory. ix 

climes. The impression, if any thought is taken on 
the matter, is that the place may be half-rock, half- 
wilderness, reeking of unsavoury fishy smells ; that 
little good ever went to it; that nothing good ever 
came out of it. Whether civilisation has ever dawned 
upon the fishermen ; whether their religion be Chris- 
tian or Pagan ; whether the fashions be those of the 
present day or of Eden ; whether the folk eat raw 
or cooked meat; are subjects of indifference to the 
brighter, busier world outside the Fogs. My own 
ideas, before receiving the sudden order to penetrate 
the girdle of mists, and make myself a citizen of the 
world within, were not unlike ; my ignorance of all 
concerning it, profound. 

I know now that ignorance alone has militated 
against an interest in the affairs of England's Ancient 
Colony. Widely different were the facts and bearings 
of life there to what I had supposed. My lot has been 
cast in almost every colony of our vast dominion. Not 
even excepting dear old Corfu, have three happier years 
than those (perforce at first, and very willingly after- 
wards) in Newfoundland, been ever spent abroad. 

Our duties, pleasures, and troubles there, are briefly 
described in the following pages. They aim at nothing 



x Introductory. 

greater than to present an idea of the social and poli- 
tical condition of the colony, with the general tone of 
its society. Would that in attempting so much, I had 

the gifts and talents of the chef of the Club, the 

grave white-bearded Bartoletti, to whom the faintest 
sketch of your intended hospitality sufficed for a per- 
fect result. " Bartoletti," said Batty of the Koyal 
Incidentals, " I Ve a few friends at dinner to-morrow ; 

I should like" "Take iced champagne, sir?" 

said the chef. " Certainly." " Very good, sir ; will 
you have a little hock in after the fish ? " " Quite so." 
"Very good, Captain Batty, I understand: you will 
have a very good dinner." The guests of the following 
night had never reason to complain that he had not 
picked up the tone of the intended spread quite 
correctly. 

Little is said of the early settlements of the colony ; 
for of history or story in this respect there is absolutely 
none to tell of. What its political future is likely to 
be, is hazardous to venture a guess at under the changes 
now progressing in the British Possessions of North 
America. As yet the Ancient Colony has wisely refused 
to link its fortunes to the new Confederation of the 
provinces, than which, it is possible, a more unsound 



Introductory. xi 

or impolitic scheme was never promoted. England, 
unable to defend, with so distant a base, her possessions 
from the attack of a neighbouring people (who have 
unexpectedly acquired the knowledge of forming a 
strong military despotism at short notice, with little 
scruple in using it), wishes to retire from the chance 
of seeing the Union Jack lowered from the ramparts of 
Quebec. But the means adopted under her guidance, 
in the hope of avoiding an almost similar catastrophe, 
will probably prove futile. A nation, like a poet, 
nascitur non fit. It may spring (like the tree from 
the acorn) from a little nucleus until it becomes in 
time great and powerful, with the prestige of old 
traditions and glories to bind men's hearts together in 
a common cause ; or it may acquire its liberty from 
bondage in a baptism of blood, equally cementing 
between man and his brother man. But it cannot be 
made suddenly out of various heterogeneous particles 
having nothing in common. What do the farmers of 
Upper Canada care for the fishermen of Nova Scotia 
one thousand miles away? or the lumbermen of the 
roaring Ottawa for the amphibious folk of Gaspe? 
The scheme is nothing but a rope of sand, which the 
first breath of adversity will disunite and scatter. The 



xii Introductory. 

inevitable Yankees want the St Lawrence for geogra- 
phical reasons. We lost our opportunity for dividing 
the balance of power on the American continent when 
Lee, Jackson, and Beauregard made their imperishable 
renown. Before many years we shall have to pay the 
penalty. 

Still, with the loss of continental territory, England, 
for the sake of her commerce, must keep her chain of 
ocean videttes intact ; and desperate ought to be her 
efforts in extremity to retain possession of such places 
as Halifax, and St John's Newfoundland. The strength 
of Quebec, in its capability for long defence, has pro- 
bably been over-estimated ; but St John's might be 
made invulnerable, the extremity of a chain stretching 
across the Atlantic from the Cape, linked together 
with St Helena, Bermuda, and Halifax. Within a 
few years from this, we may see its snug little harbour 
(holding securely one end of the great ocean alphabet) 
bristling with batteries and torpedoes, sufficient to 
uphold our flag, if driven there, like Moore to Corunna, 
in defence against all attack. 

Loving that flag, and wedded to its fortunes, who 
could not wish that towards it the loyalty of those over 
whom it waves were warm and cherished. Yet here, 



Introductory. xiii 

if indeed in any of our colonies now, it can hardly be 
so estimated. Men's hearts are not disloyal — they are 
only indifferent. Nothing is offered to warm the feel- 
ing in those hearts, and the fire naturally dies out. 
Talents, and services brilliant in proportion to the 
situation, are rendered to the State ; yet very little 
recognition ever reaches the labourers. Year by year 
passes, and nothing, absolutely nothing, occurs to 
arouse the love for the prestige of the old country: 
no honours, no message of interest, no royal visits, or 
gifts, or prizes for merit, to keep alive feelings worth all 
else in the moment of danger. How truly experience 
has proved already the shortsightedness of this policy ! 
" Why look, yer honner," said a Paddy in Canada, " if 
the Quane would jist be ordering them to build her a 
cuppil of pallisses in Oireland, for hersel and the little 
Quanes about her, and be giving the boys good wages 
durint the job, it's little ye'd hear of Faniism." In a 
common- sense view, Paddy was near the mark. A 
pint of beer served out to each soldier of the British 
army on Her Majesty's birthday, to drink Her gracious 
health, would be worth more than the cheering clone by 
order at the annual review. Schools, hospitals, good- 
conduct badges, gardens, libraries, nay, even the sup- 



xiv Introductory. 

pression of the abominable stoppages, are all capital in 
their way ; but they are not that fillip to loyalty and 
affection which men in the gap will think of, when 
the inevitable time for guarding the flag against 
tremendous odds looms darkly in the future. 

The true interests of Newfoundland and England are 
linked together : long may they so remain ! Many 
would mourn with me should the clay come when the 
old flag waved no longer from the heights of Signal 
Hill. Even as I write, the fair landscape from my 
window is every now and then blurred over, and a 
vision of memories, very dear, revolves distinctly out of 
it. I see, instead of the sunny and brown, the cold 
grays and blues of a rocky coast ; instead of the smiling 
harvest-fields, long stretches of barren and lea, fleckered 
by the rising covey, or by patches of fruit, God-given 
freely to all ! Instead of the river laden with the riches 
of Hindustan and foul with the refuse of a vast city — 
chain upon chain of lochs and streams of sweet spark- 
ling waters, ruffled by jealous rocks, and dimpled every- 
where by disporting fish ; instead of the noble crowns 
of oak and elm — the pointed cones of the firs and larches 
cutting sharp against the northern sky ; instead of the 
balmy air of a semi-tropical summer evening — the 



Introductory. xv 

glorious Aurora arching itself as a crown over the throne 
of the King of winter, whence innumerable angels spread 
themselves by battalions in battle array over the heavens, 
moving ever and deploying in front of some foe unseen 
by us ; instead of the Dundrearys and conventionalists 
of the old home, — the honest faces, clear eyes, and 
warm-pressing hands of unforgotten. busy, hard-work- 
ing friends. To them I send the following feeble 
descriptions of their lives and adopted country ; re- 
gretting if there should be ought to offend ; and 
glad, very glad, if these in any measure recal the times 
and places wherein we talked or worked, rejoiced or 
sorrowed together. 





LOST AMID THE FOGS, 



CHAPTER I. 



THE HOME DESTROYED. 




HAT a miserable clay it had been : and how 
cheerily the fire sparkled as I lay back 
in my easy -chair one memorable evening 
in December 1861. My wife, chatting 
and working, was sitting opposite ; the cat, blinking 
at the merry blaze, purred on the hearth-rug; the 
kettle, the sweetest lecturer on social science in all 
England, was unburdening its views upon the hob ; 
and on that low but genial throne of love I lay 
back comfortable and happy. Perhaps the more 
happy inasmuch as I was tired, not with idleness, but 
good hard work. All that afternoon I had been assist- 
ing a day-labourer to clear and tidy a pocket-handker- 
chief of a garden which my predecessors had left planted 
with bricks, blacking bottles, old shoes, and such other 



2 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

savoury sorts of rubbish. They evidently would have 
looked with intense scorn on all our digging, clearing, 
trenching, and manuring; and would have thought it 
far cheaper to have stopped the greengrocer's cart each 
morning for a modicum of faded greens, instead of lay- 
ing in the hope of fresh-cut Brussels sprouts as we did 
then. Only the week before it had been clearly estab- 
lished by all hands as a sure and ascertained fact that 
our brigade would not go abroad for another year at 
least ; and although the news about the Trent outrage, 
as the papers called it, was fanning up a very pretty 
breeze throughout the country, yet somehow or other we 
all thought it would soon blow itself out. So much had 
it become the fashion with our rulers to accept kicks on 
behalf of the old British Lion, that we never expected 
him to growl and lash his tail on this occasion. So I 
closed the bargain with my landlord for the house, 
hired the gardener, laid in a good stock of coals, and 
sent for a sister from the Channel Islands to see us well 
through Lent. I thought of this while the tea was draw- 
ing, and very comfortable and cosy it all appeared to be. 
There was a hurried knock at the door, and the ser- 
vant brought in an official letter. I hate an official 
letter at any time, especially before meals. One may 
receive a good many without the appetite being a whit 
improved. But this one, I perfectly remember, I opened 
with great nonchalance, although I might have thought 
that it was an unusual time for that kind of missive to 
arrive in. But had I not made my preparations, built 
my little barns, stored them with good things for the 



The Home Destroyed. 3 

future, and, above all things, planted my Brussels 
sprouts ? What, then, cared I ? Without a shadow 
of concern I sprang the envelope and read — well, there 
are some sensations in life one never forgets. 

" Thou fool, this night" — it flashed through my brain 
quickly enough. It was worse to tell my wife, who was 
pouring out the tea, and calling Tom to drink his saucer 
of milk. 

" What is it, Kob ? Anything to worry you ?" 
Well ! I forget how I told her : the remembrance oi 
the next half hour is all dizziness. I think she came at 
last to peep over my shoulder to see what that " stupid 
official " contained, and then she read in the adjutant's 
handwriting — 

" My dear Sir, — The colonel has just come from the 
Horse Guards ; — telegraphed for by D. A. Gr. this after- 
noon. A great deal more shine about that Trent job 
than we thought. We are all ordered off for Canada. You 
are told off for Newfoundland, and sail next Saturday 
in the Liverpool packet. Parade to-morrow at ten for 
inspection ; all hands. Thought you would like to 
know as soon as possible. Excuse haste. — Yours, &c, 

"J. C." 

" Sail on Saturday for Newfoundland ! and this is 
Wednesday night ! " As I wrote before, what we said 
or did that next hour is all a blur and dizziness. I 
hope we remembered that it was all ordered well and 
right ; but I am sure that the taste for that pleasant tea 



4 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

was gone, and that the kettle sang any longer in vain 
for us. 

There was indeed no time to be lost, and fifty hours of 
crashing and smashing succeeded. Household treasures 
were crushed in boxes or scattered to the four winds of 
heaven ; when, ah ! when to be re-collected ? Even in 
handing over the Brussels sprouts to my neighbour 
over the paling there was a sharpish pang, and a hearty 
confounding of Captain Wilkes's impudence. Then, far 
worse, came the tearing of the heart's fibres at the part- 
ing moment : the wife to go back to her maiden home, 
the sister to her father ; and I on to a new world, where 
Home to Englishmen is still an unknown word. 

" 'Twas winter then, and as we parted 
The dry brown leaf was rustling on the ground, 
Making the sadness sadder, and the cloud 
Of the long farewell deeper in its gloom." 

In the meanwhile, hastily going backwards and for- 
wards, here and there, to and fro, in hurried trips to 
London and down again ; in railways, steamers, shops, 
private houses, and libraries ; I had been vainly attempt- 
ing to discover something, no matter how indefinite, 
about Newfoundland. It appeared really to be what 
its name imparted, and not the oldest possession of 
the Crown, for scarce a syllable could I glean respect- 
ing it. 

"Newfoundland?" said one of my friends. "To be 
sure ; know all about it. Fish, you know : tremendous 
place for salt fish ! " 



The Home Destroyed. 5 

'"Newfoundland?" replied another travelled monkey. 
" Oh, yes ! certainly ; know it very well. Banks, you 
know — tremendous banks of mud, and awful fogs. Take 
care of yourself — cold, cough, bronchitis, eh?" 

"Newfoundland?" ruminated a third, more honest; 
" never heard anything of it except they cook everything 
in cod liver oil ! Kather not go there myself. Good-bye ; 
God bless you." 

Then there was a fourth and a fifth, ay, a twentieth, 
who knew only that it abounded in fish, fog, and mud 
banks. The picture was, however, sometimes com- 
pleted with ice, icebergs, stunted pines, seals, whales, 
and other familiar items of the Arctic picture. 

At length, wearied of fruitless inquiry, I turned into 
a well-known chart and map shop in Charing Cross, 
where they profess to have plans of all the civilised 
countries of the globe. 

" Newfoundland ? " said the shopman, laying the 
accent heavy on the middle syllable; "certainly, sir. 
American, I think ; Northern or Southern ? Oh ! 
British colony, is it? Then we shall find it in this 
lot." 

His index-finger travelled down a goodly list, but no, 
he didn't seem to hit it. He gave a sort of sheepish, 
hesitating glance round the ample shelves of maps, and 
said — 

"I'm half afraid, sir, we have not any maps of New- 
foundland. I really don't think it has ever been inquired 
for till now. But stop — by the by, perhaps this will do." 
He pulled out, from an immense flat drawer full of 



6 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

charts, an Admiralty Survey of the coast line about the 
great banks, with the soundings marked by hundreds 
all about it. What with the meridians and parallels, 
compass marks and tracks of ships, it looked as if a 
.spider had dipped his legs in the ink bottle and travelled 
leisurely about the paper. Moreover, it was a very 
likely thing to be useful to any one desiring a knowledge 
of the interior of the country : very ! 

" Ah ! well, sir," he said, " we 've nothing more. I 
am sorry I cannot accommodate you." It was clearly 
of no use going further to ask for a " Murray's 
Guide." 

So this is all I could scrape together of my future 
home, with one other little matter that may as well be 
told. There was an officer's widow, a lady of mature 
years, who lived on the outskirts of our great garrison 
town, attached by long association to its unbucolic 
habits and sounds, which possess often but little fas- 
cination for many, condemned, rnalgre euoc, to live by 
them. I remembered somehow or other, many years 
back, when a subaltern under her husband, hearing 
her talk of Newfoundland, and just thought that I 
would run up and ask her about it. It was the last 
card, and it certainly did not turn out much of a 
trump. She laughed at my calling it New-foundland, 
and said : 

" Newfunlan' ? oh, yes ; I was there several years. 

Colonel C was a captain then. It was when we 

first married." 

" Indeed. And did you like it ? " 



The Home Destroyed. 7 

11 Like it ? — well, yes, very much. I was very happy 
there." 

" And what did you do ? " 

" Do? — well, I don't think we did anything." 

" I mean, how did you amuse yourself? " 

" Oh ! there are no amusements. It's quite out of all 
that sort of thing, except when the letters arrived once 
a month or six weeks." 

" H'm ! Are there good roads ? " 

" No. Scarcely any roads at all that can be called 
roads ; but then in winter you may drive where you like 
in the sleighs." 

" And the food ? " 

" Well, the beef was not bad, and the bread good." 

" Any fruit or gardens ? " 

" Oh, no ; nothing of that sort. Indeed, the summer is 
too short, except for early vegetables. The cabbages, 
I remember, growing in the ditch of the old fort, were 
splendid." 

There was a grain of comfort then, thought I, re- 
membering my unfortunate spec in Brussels sprouts. 

" Well, but is there nothing else ? * 

" Yes ; there 's plenty of salt fish, and pork, and snow, 
and wild ducks, and Irish Papists. Oh ! I remember 
now, it's an awful place for wind" 

"Wind?" 

" Yes. It blows terribly, and it was always blowing. 
We were often and often obliged to walk out tied two 
and two together." 

Mercy on us ! thought I, as I went away quite full 



8 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

of valuable information ; and this worthy lady told me 
she had been very happy there, and yet she can remem- 
ber nothing of the place but salt pork, wild ducks, snow, 
Irish Papists, and wind ! none of which, to the minds of 
common men, contain the essential elements of happi- 
ness. It was very clear that her happiness consisted in 
the home which she formed for herself and its secret 
inward joys ; and I thought none the less of her for the 
sweet truth she had unwittingly betrayed, but yet had 
never spoken in sober fact or word. 

But what was I to make of it? Why, nothing — 
really nothing. The spider's legs over the Admiralty 
chart were just as explanatory ; and I knew no more if 
I was to take out flannel shirts or strawberry jam, 
railway books or Victoria druggeting, than I did before. 
People do not usually travel about with barrels of salt 
pork, so a knowledge of the superabundance of that 
delicate viand by no means assisted or refreshed my 
musings. So this is why, the reason why, that I, hav- 
ing now experience of the things wherein the first Fish 
Colony is a sealed book, an unknown land, a country 
almost undiscovered, at any rate on the shelves of Mudie 
or the parlour tables of English homes, have taken pity 
on future voyagers, to tell them what they will see, and 
taste, and hear within the rocky barriers which frown 
upon the white sails hurrying across the misty banks of 
black, inhospitable-looking Newfoundland. 







CHAPTER II. 



ON THE SAD SEA WAVE. 






HE decks of the noble Cunarder, in which we 
were ordered to embark in Liverpool, were 
crowded with officers and soldiers, together 
with the few male passengers who had secured 
their berths before the Quartermaster- General pounced 
upon the accommodation. Boots it now very little to 
tell of the thousand phases of farewell and tender linger- 
ing looks of affection, or of last words hurriedly scratched 
off amid the din and medley of the saloon tables. Yet 
even here one could not see with indifference the sad 
sight of a sobbing girl ; sobbing over some great uncon- 
querable grief. The sounds came from amid a little 
group gathered near the top of the companion stairs, 
near to which several of us lingered, partly in sympathy, 
and partly in idle curiosity. 

"I do assure you, Miss," said a female voice, break- 
ing my reverie quite sharply — " I do assure you, Miss, 
there is no room. It 's quite impossible as how you can 
come this voyage ; nor you, Miss, neither." 

The voice was that of the stewardess expostulating 



10 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

with two young ladies, who had pinned the worthy sea- 
abigail at the head of the stairs, and resolutely refused 
to take " No " for an answer. 

" Both married this week," whispered Ensign Sharp 
to me ; " isn't it a pretty go ? " 

The ladies were pretty at any rate, and not the less 
interesting from the fact conveyed by the whisper. The 
younger, who could barely have counted seventeen, leant 
against one of the painted panels, her hands crossed in 
front, and her blue eyes suffused with tears. She had 
evidently given up the fight, and was reflecting how she 
should best reach home again. But the other was made 
of different stuff altogether. Some two and twenty 
summers had ripened her into one of the truest and 
fairest types of the Anglo-Saxon woman a man might 
meet with in a very long day's march. Nor was it 
difficult to see in the fixed expression of that deep-set 
hazel eye and compressed lips, a meaning which might 
be interpreted, " If you think I have gone through all 
this and come so far to turn back again, you are pre- 
ciously mistaken." 

" Are you sure, stewardess, that the ladies' saloon is 
full?" 

" Oh ! full ! Miss," (the lady tossed her head just the 
merest little,) " I do assure you — turned upside-down 
intirely. The strictest orders was given, and we was 
told as how no ladies was coming, and Grovinment has 
took up everything." 

" But they said at the office I might come if you 
would find accommodation." 



" On the Sad Sea Waver 11 

" I'm sure it's quite impossible, Miss," (another little 
toss), "and so many gentlemen a-board." 

" Then I must take Captain T 's berth, and he 

will sleep on the floor." 

" But, Miss," (spoken this time a little doubtfully,) 
11 the gentlemen is all doubled up together in the 
cabins," said the poor mystified woman, trying to make 
a side-move down the stairs. 

Clank, clank, ring, ring, clank, clank, ring, ring, ring, 
the second bell for starting. " Who 's for the shore ? " 
cried a hoarse voice at the gangway. 

The lady fixed her lips still more firmly, and more 
brightly flashed that hazel eye. Bending forward to the 
stewardess, she said, " Then I will sleep on the saloon 
floor, unless you will let me purchase the right to your 
cabin." 

Triumphant ! by all that is holy in love. Amphitrite, 
grown gray in Neptune's service, was not deaf to the 
value of earth's yellow dross. She hesitated, stammered, 
appeared to think, and was lost. " Come," said the 
happy bride, " go, like a good creature, and get it ready; 
we shan't quarrel about terms. Charlie," she continued, 
turning to a young officer who approached her with 
rather a woe-begone face, " go quick and speak to the 

agent, and tell Captain C to do so too. Don't be 

afraid," she added, again approaching her weeping 
weaker sister, (a stranger, as it turned out, until that 
morning,) " depend upon it we shall find plenty of 
room." 

And so they did : for that evening, by the clear, bright 






12 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

starlight, I saw them pacing, arm-in-arm, up and down 
the hurricane-deck, turning wistful looks now and again 
towards the eastern horizon, below which home was 
rapidly descending. The pleasant voices of the happy 
brides were as the old shoe flung after us in our exile, 
and an omen of another home to be recreated in the 
land to which not choice, but stern fate had wedded us. 
Is it too old a story to talk a little of these great 
floating-hotels with which the skill and genius of a 
Liverpool man has linked the two continents together ? 
Men who have travelled much about the world are 
enabled to make comparisons of the good and bad — or 
perhaps it may be more courteous to say, of the good 
and better — arrangements both of this and of other 
great transatlantic lines ; to note on -one side, in the 
midst of much that is admirable, blotches of meanness, 
dirt, and disorder plainly visible ; while in other cases, 
strict attention to cleanliness, order, and liberality con- 
duce vastly to the comfort of the voyagers and to the 
welfare of the proprietors. It is not to be supposed 
that all arrangements for ocean-travel have been per- 
fected — that the ultima Thule of order in sea-going 
ships has been reached ; but at any rate it was marvel- 
lous to see, in the midst of the wide expanse of water, 
our tables covered four times each day with such a 
quantity and variety of well-dressed food. Nor even if 
it has been described before in brighter pages, these 
shall not omit a word of praise upon the manner in 
which our meals were served — a point which enhanced 
by a vast deal the general comfort of all on board. The 



" On the Sad Sea Wave." 13 

tables ran along the whole length of either side of the 
saloon beneath the hurricane-deck, leaving a broad pas- 
sage between for the use of the waiters. These, a large 
body of respectable-looking young men, all dressed alike 
in dark blue, ranged themselves, at the first sound of the 
dinner-bell, in a line, dressed as truly as at a parade, 
reaching from the pantry-door to the head of the saloon. 
From the moment the cloths were spread by a few of 
them, every dish, or plate, or bottle was passed from top 
to bottom of the row, hand over hand, like monkeys are 
said to steal cocoa-nuts from enclosures. We will sup- 
pose the passengers seated, and the tureens of soup at 
the head of the various tables. There is a sound of a 
bell, — one, — and instantly, from the parade of silent, 
marshalled waiters, there steps out each sixth or eighth 
man, and, with two paces, advancing together, the hands 
are simultaneously placed on the covers, a glance at the 
head of the table, where the captain sits, and at once 
the fragrant steam of a dozen tureens is released. This 
is the signal for the parade to break, and for a minute, 
while the soup is being distributed, the centre aisle is 
all apparent confusion ; but the warning bell sounds 
again, the parade instantly reforms, the appointed men 
come and lift off the tureens on the starboard side, which 
are handed down the line to the pantry. The bell sounds 
— two — the signal for the whole line to face to the right- 
about, and the " port " side is cleared in like manner with 
the rapidity of thought, instantly to be furnished with 
fish and side dishes, and " right-about" all together to 
the starboards. Then a short double-shuffle down the 



14 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

centre, a tinkle, and the whole line rapidly forms up for 
the third set — j oints and vegetables. The sweets, cheeses, 
dessert, and coffee complete the full figures of this pran- 
dial quadrille, which, with its intervening mazes, is danced 
to the music of popping corks and merry laughter of 
some two hundred guests, for whom this amusement is 
provided four times a day. The most remarkable fea- 
ture of the whole ship to me was the silence, order, and 
regularity with which all this heavy work was done. 
Each man knew his place well, and it was said that to 
neglect or leave that place was tantamount to quit the 
ship and the service of the company. 

It was in truth a merry dinner always, in spite of the 
cold ; and there was a good reason why it should be so. 
On account of the somewhat exceptional nature of the 
voyage on this occasion, the captain had drawn the three 
senior officers apart and told them that the officers might 
call for what liquors they chose ; and that, so long as 
they kept within moderate bounds, and did not greatly 
exceed the Government allowance, no accounts would 
be kept. "You are very good," replied the colonel, 
"and we are much obliged to the company; but I think 
it would be prudent to say nothing about it now, for 
there are no less than twenty-seven young assistant- 
surgeons among us." The captain laughed with a merry 
twinkle in his eye, and said, " In that case it certainly 
would be prudent." However, the news leaked out, and 
consequently the dinners were none the less noisy and 
merry ; while the fish, if there were any in these icy 
waters, or Mother Carey's chickens in our wake, must 



" On the Sad Sea Wave." 15 

have been astonished at the number of champagne 
bottles tossed among them. If a universal earthquake 
or deluge take place hereafter, burying the present 
abodes of men, and lifting up the bottom of the Atlantic 
as the future home of, perhaps, a superior race of beings, 
how will their geologists account for the multitude of 
bottles which, like the flints in the present chalks, will 
be found in regular layers or strata in the tracks of the 
great steam lines from England to America and India ? 
Perhaps they will found their future theories of the 
habits of the former animal man on this circumstance 
among others ; and with what result in their specula- 
tions, or how far their guesses would be from the truth, 
would be amusing and interesting could we but know 
them now. 

'One day when nearly off Cape Kace, either the corks 
had flown faster than ever, or there was some unusual 
reason of merriment at the captain s table, just above 
ours, causing even the waiters, in the grave figures of 
the grand quadrille, to bend forward to listen and in- 
dulge in furtive giggles. The infection spread from 
table to table, and we soon found out what it was ; 
though at first all down the starboard side, round the 
stern, and up the port side again, one could distinguish 
nothing among the babble but " boots" and " bet," "dol- 
lars," " Yankee/' and such few prominent words. How- 
ever, we had it all complete at last. A New York 
gentleman laid a wager with the captain, of a bottle of 
champagne, that he could not give him a correct answer 
within a minute to the following simple question — 



1() Lost Amid the Fogs. 

"A Yankee rushed into a bootmaker's store in Broad- 
way, ' Here, look sharp ! ' cried he— 'just off for Cali- 
fornia — ship sails in half an hour — want a pair of 
boots — look alive ! ' Down tumbled the boots off the 
shelves, from which he was soon fitted. ' How much ?' 
' Five dollars.' ' Grive me change for this fifty-dollar 
bill — sharp, quick ! ' The bootmaker, not having change, 
rushed to a money-changer. ' Quick, give me change 
for this fifty-dollar bill — passenger just off to California;' 
and in a few minutes away ran the Yankee with his 
boots — off to California, of course. In about an hour 
afterwards the money-changer came down to the boot- 
maker, ' Holloa ! sir,' quoth he, ' this is a bad bill ; pay 
me down fifty dollars at once,' which the poor fellow, 
much disgusted, had to do. Now, how much did the 
bootmaker lose ? 

'"Come, captain, quick! answer; no thinking about 
it." 

" Eh, sir ? how much did he lose ? Why, one hun- 
dred dollars, of course." 

There was a shout of laughter round the table, and 
cries of " Eight," " Wrong," in all directions. 

"Why, you forget," cried one, "that the boots were 
paid for." 

" What 's that to do with it ?" said another ; " didn't 
the Yankee carry them off, and was not the bill bad ? " 

" Of course it was," said his neighbour. 

" The captain's right." 

" Bet you a sovereign he 's wrong." 

" Done. What do you say it is ?" 



" On the Sad Sea Waver 17 

"•Why, fifty dollars and the boots. Am I right, 
sir?" 

But the New-Yorker only laughed, and the chorus 
with him became louder. The question spread from 
table to table, right down, round the stern and up the 
port side, " What did the bootmaker lose?" until our 
ears were deafened with the answers and bets. 

At length it reached a great big Boston man,- who had 
set up among us as a sort of oracle ; for he wore long, 
straight, black clothes, of a clerical cut, and above his 
grey head and huge flapping ears a monstrous shovel 
hat. "We had all taken him for a superannuated bishop, 
until his friends let out that he had been at the head 
of a great insurance office all his life, deep in all the 
mysteries of policy and premium ; so that verily it was 
thought assurance indeed when a pert ensign said — 

" Now, 1 11 tell you what, old buck ; bet you a bottle 
of champagne you don't tell right off, ' What did the 
bootmaker lose?'" 

" Sir," said the big man, with much gravity, " I 
decline the bet ; but I shall be happy to answer your 
question if you will put it." 

So he was told, and then the pert ensign said again : 
" Now, tell us — quick," old boy — ' What did the boot- 
maker lose?'" 

" What did he lose, sir ? Why, sir, he lost, of course, 
fifty dollars, on the one hand, which he returned to the 
money-changer, and forty-five dollars which he gave the 
rogue. He lost, sir, of course, ninety-five dollars, and 
the boots." 

B 



18 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

But, alas for the bishop-looking broker ! A ludicrous 
shout of derision from some who had found it out 
greeted his reply ; upon which he rose with a heavy 
frown, and went on deck. 

Then again rose the cry, " What did the bootmaker 
lose ? " from all parts of the table. 

" Fifty-five dollars/' cried a venturesome guess. 
"Forty-five," cried another, equally confident in his 
reasons. But the New-Yorker only smiled and laughed 
with all, telling us to give reasons for our answers. 

The very waiters carried it into the pantry, bake- 
house, and galleys, whence it went to the second- 
class passengers and the forecastle; until all round 
the ship, in a circle from the red-hot funnel, where 
mostly we did congregate, was heard the familiar cry, 
"What did the bootmaker lose?" Header, what was 
it, and why ? 

It really did one's heart good to hear those hard- 
working waiters crack their jokes on it in the recesses of 
the pantry. It is the best sign in the world, and the 
safest guarantee for the comfort, either of home or 
public life, to hear the fellow-creatures on whom we so 
much depend laughing and singing about us ; and, 
further than this, one may be certain of the true calibre 
of our neighbours or companions in the scale of gentle- 
men or gentlewomen, in observing the manner of their 
address to their inferiors. To many men (like myself) 
it were far better to have no servants at all, than to be 
waited on in gloom, sullenness, dirt, or incapability, 
whether from ill -health or ignorance; and for this 



" On the Sad Sea Wave." 19 

reason it might devoutly be wished that the order 
observed in this line were the rule on other great lines 
of stearn-conimunication. I well remember one night, 
some three or four years ago, when running down before 
the trades, and just off that fatal rock islet of Sombrero, 
the vidette of the great Antillean group, that at a sud- 
den disturbance kicked up at the small hours by some 
wild young ensigns, to my astonishment the waiters 
appeared on the scene, at the very beginning of the row, 
all fully dressed. The next day I called my cabin 
steward, rather angrily, to tell him " that again there 
was no water in the jug," and blew him up for his ever- 
lasting carelessness, when his forlorn, toil-worn, greasy 
look went to my heart ; and I happily remembered in 
time my own easy lot with his hard measure of 
bondage. 

" Where did you," I asked, " spring from last night 
in the row ? " 

" Spring from, sir ? Why, nowheres, 'cept under 
the table/' 

"But you can't sleep there; you were dressed, the 
same you now are." 

c; Well, sir, begging your pardin, we do sleep there ; 
and, in course, we 's never undressed." 

" What ! " I exclaimed, petrified with astonishment, 
" do you mean to tell me that you and the other waiters 
have never undressed since you left England ! " 

' ; Xot that I knows on, sir; we ain't got no cabin, 
nor no place." 

" No berths or bunks ? " 



20 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

'" No, sir; none. When we are empty we gets berths ; 
but they takes them away for passengers whenever they 
are wanted." 

The thermometer was 90° in the shade, sometimes 
hotter; and we were now nineteen days from home. 
He rolled away with a languid step to fetch the water, 
and I, folding my arms in my bare shirt- sleeves, had a 
quiet minute or two to think over this miserable revela- 
tion, made on board one of the finest ships of a great 
steam company in the year of grace 1858. And this 
was the reason why the poor fellows died like rotten 
sheep at St Thomas. The man who spoke to me him- 
self is dead since of yellow-fever there ; he was gradu- 
ally sickening for it as he gave me the tale. What ! 
slavery not in Europe, or in English ships? and all 
this misery caused to swell the dividend a miserable 
sixteenth per cent, each half-year ? What wonder the 
superstitious fancied that an avenging Heaven struck 
hard at such an iniquitous system, and sent their noble 
ships to split on rocks, or self-consume in withering 
flames; their bows once turned away, never again to 
point or bring back their ill-gotten gains to Old Eng- 
land's shore. Here and there, on the deserted coral 
reef, their iron ribs are cankering in rust, like the 
skeleton of many a poor English slave thrown on the 
sandy strand to rot, while wife and little ones are still 
dreaming of the good things " when father comes back 
again." Alas ! all they will hear is from the boatswain's 
rough voice, telling them that he died of Yellow Jack 
and he " don't know any more about it." 






" On the Sad Sea Wave." 21 

Here is the story: never, I venture to say, more 
touchingly told before: — 

" Sailing away ! 
Losing the breath of the shores in May — 
Dropping down from the beautiful bay, 
Over the sea-slope vast and gray ! 
And the Skipper's eyes with a mist are blind ; 
For thoughts rush up on the rising wind 
Of a gentle face that he leaves behind, 
And a heart that throbs through the fog-bank dim, 
Thinking of him. 

" Far into night 
He watches the gleam of the lessening light 
Fix'd on the dangerous island height 
That bars the harbour he loves from sight ; 
And he wishes at dawn he could tell the tale 
Of how they had weather'd the southward gale, 
To brighten the cheek that had grown so pale 
With a sleepless night among spectres grim — 
Terrors for him. 

"Yo-heave-ho ! 
Here 's the bank where the fishermen go ! 
Over the schooner's sides they throw 
Tackle and bait to the deeps below, 
And Skipper Ben in the water sees, 
When its ripples curl to the light land-breeze, 
Something that stirs like his apple trees, 
And two soft eyes that beneath them swim, 
Lifted to him. 

" Hear the wind roar, 
And the rain through the slit sails tear and pour ! 
' Steady ! we '11 scud by the Cape Ann shore — 
Then hark to the Beverly bells once more ! ' 
And each man work'd with the will of ten ; 
While up in the rigging now and then 



22 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

The lightning glared in the face of Ben, 
Turn'd to the black horizon's rim, 
Scowling on him. 

" Into his brain 
Burn'd with the iron of hopeless pain, 
Into thoughts that grapple and eyes that strain, 
Pierces the memory, cruel and vain ! 
Never again shall he walk at ease 
Under his blossoming apple-trees, 
That whisper away in the sunset breeze, 
While the soft eyes float where the sea-gulls skim, 
Gazing on him. 

" How they went down 
Never was known in the still old town ; 
Nobody guess'd how the fisherman brown, 
With the look of despair, that was half a frown, 
Faced his fate in the furious night, 
Faced the mad billows with hunger white, 
Just within hail of the beacon light, 
That shone on a woman sweet and trim, 
Waiting for him. 

" Beverly bells 
Ring to the tide as it ebbs and swells ! 
His was the anguish a moment tells — 
The passionate sorrow Death quickly knells ; 
But the wearing wash of a lifelong woe 
Is left for the desolate heart to know, 
Whose tides with the dull years come and go, 
Till hope drifts dead to its stagnant brim, 
Thinking of him." 

Six days away from England, battling with the fierce 
winds and storm-tossed waves to make our way boldly 
into the midst of the wide and misty Atlantic. The 
south-west, from out of a murky bank, had risen in all 
his vast impetuous strength and plunged us headlong 






11 On the Sad Sea Wave." 23 

into misery and turmoil ; that is, such of us, and we are 
legion, who like the sea in fair weather passably enough, 
but are worse than useless mortals in a gale of wind — 
useless to ourselves, nauseous and troublesome to those 
about us. The great waves, swelling into liquid moun- 
tains along the horizon, tossed the good ship like a cork 
on their surface, and would as equally have tossed the 
Great Eastern, or anything which the hand of man 
could manufacture. It was an appropriate thought 
now — when, leaning over the bulwarks, clutching tightly 
to the shrouds, and watching the rise of successive 
inountains of water over the dark line where earth and 
heaven mingled imperceptibly — of man and all his be- 
longings ! How apparently insignificant they appeared 
to the terrible powers which hissed through the dis- 
tended rigging, and contemptuously dashed the salt 
spray over and over the gallant vessel defying their 
utmost powers of destruction. It is something to think 
at all in such a moment, and it cannot be done for long. 
The brain becomes too addled for philosophy. One may 
look hastily, think briefly, conceive the beauty, power, 
and glory of the appearance, and then sink back at 
once into the realities such conflicts produce in the dis- 
comfort of the inner man. It was dirty, gloomy, muggy, 
wet, sticky everywhere. Even down below in the 
cabins the moisture ran off the walls, and daylight was 
but a mockery of the name. Four days of terrible 
unrest and weariness before the fierce storm passed us 
by, or, in nautical phrase, the wind chopped to N.-E., 
with smoother seas, and then to N.-W., with sleet 



24 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

and snow, and piercing, bitter cold. Each hour, as 
we approached the American shore, the cold became 
more and more intense ; the voyagers in greater num- 
bers crowded to the lee of the hot, red funnel, and asked 
each other wonderingly the figures of the thermometer, 
or betted or hedged upon the chances of peace or war 
with the Yankees. Then two or three would link arms 
together, and stagger, with heads down, along the deck 
until forced back for heat and shelter again ; while, ever 
and anon, the ship would lurch heavily, and come back 
upon her roll with a sluggish thump, from which a 
shower of salt spray would tower some twenty feet above 
her bows, to fall back upon the deck and shrouds a 
mass of broken, glistening, crystal ice. Perhaps it 
was all a joke to Arctic voyagers, and that Sir Leopold 
M'Clintock's crew would hardly have buttoned up their 
pea-jackets to face such a trifle as a keen nor'-wester at 
27° below zero ; but to us, unaccustomed to it and un- 
prepared, it was three days of real misery, which few 
would care to pass again, and which many did pass in 
their berths entirely, huddled tight beneath the blan- 
kets. One might envy the cook in his warm, comfort- 
able galley, and linger about the little iron door, almost 
wishing to volunteer as assistant, until the close smell, 
and the heat, and the oil from the engine-room close at 
hand, combined with the quick, unsteady motion of the 
ship, drove all loiterers up to face the blast, and crouch 
again behind the red funnel for shelter. But all miseries 
have their end ; and, on the morning of the day before 
we reached Halifax, the fierce destroyer had passed 



" On the Sad Sea Waver 25 

onward, and a raw, damp wind from the southward 
had taken his place upon the mighty plains of ocean. 
But, look ! what wonder, what marvel is this ? The 
ship is literally hung with diamonds ! Each mast, and 
rope, and shroud, and stay coated with transparent ice, 
inches thick, upon which the rays of light, breaking 
ever and anon from behind the mists, resolve themselves 
into a million points of prismatic, inharmonious colour. 
The sailors are knocking off the ice from ropes, and 
shrouds, and yards, whence, like showers of broken glass, 
it descends crashing on the decks. From our shelter 
behind the great, red funnel we watch them sweeping 
it, by great shovelfuls, overboard, and wonder what they 
would give a barrel for it in Cairo, where the hot blast 
of the sirocco dries the very tongue and throat to leather. 
If one could only sink distance, it would literally, as 
in many other riches of earth, be throwing silver over- 
board by the bushel. 

" Such terrible waste ! isn't it, dear ? " said a sweet, 
soft voice close at hand. " Don't you wish, dear, 
we had it all for our poor old folks down at the 
lodge ? " 

It was the voice of the brave young bride, who was 
leaning near the gangway on her husband's arm. Well, 
thought I, a curious wish indeed ; maybe my face ex- 
pressed the thought, for she nodded, and said — 

" I was thinking what a pity to see so much good 
stuff thrown overboard. Oh ! so very sad ! such ter- 
rible waste ! " 

" But it's not of much use/' I replied, deferentially ; 



26 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

" and the old women in England would scarcely care 
for it." 

"Ah! indeed you're mistaken; indeed you are; we 
could pick out all the good bits, and there appear such 
a quantity thrown away." 

" But surely they would find little nourishment in 
ice ? " 

" Ice ! " she exclaimed, — " ice ! I don't mean the ice ;" 
and she laughed a merry peal of cheerful sounds. 
" Oh ! dear, you surely did not think I meant the ice ; 
I was talking of the great basketsful of remains from 
the cabin-tables which I see thrown overboard. Now, 
wasn't I, Charlie, dear?" 

" Chatting nonsense of a parcel of stuff, eh, Carry ? 
I dare say." 

" I '11 pinch your arm if you say that again, sir ; I 
will, Charlie. I wasn't talking nonsense of a parcel of 
stuff. Perhaps you have not seen the great baskets of 
provisions thrown overboard," she added, turning again 
to our group. 

" No, indeed, I could not have supposed it ; perhaps 
it's the mere rubbish." 

" Indeed it is not rubbish. You can have no idea 
what is in those baskets which are turned into the sea 
three times a-day. I saw legs of fowls, and wings too, 
great bits of turbot, slices of beef and mutton, mince 
pies, cheese-cakes, biscuit, bread, ham, and fifty other 
things all muddled together, enough to feed a whole 
village, if properly cleaned, and put on one side. Oh ! 
it 's so sad to think of such waste, indeed it is ! " 



11 On the Sad Sea Wave" 27 

" But, my dear Carry, you don't suppose it's done on 
purpose ; depend upon it the steward would make some- 
thing of it if he could keep it." 

" Let's ask him, Charlie; there's a dear: it makes 
me quite unhappy." 

" Very good, little woman ; anything to satisfy you : 
come along." 

So slipping and sliding along the hurricane-deck, 
down the corkscrew-ladder, and beyond the bar, we 
solicited an audience of the great functionary within, 
and had the gratification of seeing him smile compla- 
cently, though withal not without a touch of pity when 
our request was made known. 

" Bless you, ma'am ! " he vouchsafed to reply, " we 've 
a tried it scores of times, both a winter and a summer ; 
and it isn't to be done. When we first started, the 
most particular orders were given by the owners to 
save all the good scraps for the poor at Liverpool and 
New York; but the whole mass of it fermented, and 
smelt, and moulded; and there was such a quantity 
that there was no place to keep it ; and, in short, there 
was no help but to pitch it away, and overboard it goes." 

"It's very sad," said the tender-hearted girl, " to see 
such waste." 

" So it is, ma'am, so it is; but where 's the help ? " 
Here 's some nice, hot, smoking currant buns, just out of 
the oven. Please help yourself, ma'am ; I thought 
they'd be just the thing for this miserable day." 

And thus the chief of the stewards dismissed his 
petitioners with their hands full of cheery, hot brown 



28 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

cake, fragrant with fruit and candied lemon-peel. The 
young wife ran off with a handful down the cabin- 
stairs for her sick friend, the old stewardess ; and before 
one could count twenty she was walking with her hus- 
band up and clown the icy deck again, and exchanging 
pleasant words all round. A very queen among us she 
had been the few days of our companionship together, 
and worthily had she sat upon her throne. There was 
nothing wonderful in the homage paid her by a large 
mixed set of officers and travellers ; how one ran for a 
stool and another for a shawl ; how all waited for her 
to take her place at dinner, and rose at our end of the 
table when she gave the signal ; or brought her books 
to read, and gladly took a lesson in cribbage and back- 
gammon when the candles were lighted. Nothing 
wonderful in all this, nothing ; for a woman at all ages 
may command or take it. She was young, but it was 
not that ; she was fair to look on and comely, but it was 
not that ; she was sharp, and quick, and clean, but it 
was not that : it was, that she was kind, and cheerful, 
and gentle, and, withal, strong in good common-sense, 
supported by a total absence of prudery and affectation. 
Womanly as a woman, she sat among a mingled mass 
of men who were her servants at any moment, and 
proud to do a little service at her bidding ; men who 
knew instinctively that such a woman was able and 
willing to do them a service should necessity arise ; a 
woman weak and pliable in sunshine and prosperity, 
yet one who would arise a lioness under the trials and 
adversities of a Saragossa or a Lucknow. 



" On the Sad Sea Wave." 29 

•• Pass we the long, unvarying course ; the track, 
Oft trod, that never leaves a trace behind ; 
Pass we the calm, the gale, the change, the tack, 
And each unknown caprice of wave or wind ; 
Pass we the joys and sorrows sailors find, 
Coop'd in their winged sea-girt citadel — 
The foul, the fair, the contrary, the kind, 
As breezes rise and fall, and billows swell — 
Till, on some jocund morn — lo ! Land ! and — all is well." 

Next day we were off-and-on the port of Halifax, 
waiting in a dense fog for a pilot; guns firing each 
quarter of an hour, the captain pacing the bridge im- 
patiently, and heavy wagers rapidly passing among the 
ensigns and assistant-surgeons relative to the moment- 
ous question of peace or war. Suddenly, about mid- 
day, without warning, the pilot was alongside, and 
hailing for a rope. There was a rush to the gangway 
and a cry for news. " Is it war ? — Is it peace ? Oh, 
pilot, speak, I do entreat you, speak ! " And so entreated, 
that oracle squirted a mouthful of juice upon the deck, 
and most poetically replied — 

"The skunks have gived 'em up. I knowed they 
would/' 

There was a groan and a shout of dismay among 
our junior comrades as their vision of glory melted 
into air. "Who'll buy a revolver?" cried Ensign 
Sparkles, "going cheap;" and in another hour we 
were alongside the Cunard wharf at Halifax. 




CHAPTER III. 



HALIGONIAN. 




TAFF officers by dozens on the wharf, and 
indescribable confusion everywhere for about 
two hours ; at the end of which time some 
two hundred officers had received orders for 
their various destinations, and we had been transferred to 
the Tuscaloosa, lying at the orders of the Quartermaster- 
General, in the harbour. To see the men settle down 
in their new floating-barrack was the work of another 
hour, when, as the wind had risen to a contrary gale, 
and the Tuscaloosa had scarcely any coals on board, the 
captain decided that he could not start till the next 
day for Sydney, Cape Breton, where he was to replenish 
his stock of fuel. This ascertained, a party of us went 
on shore for the night, partly on business, partly to see 
the place, or rather so much of it as peeped out of its 
mantle of pure white, whereby we could count the steeples 
against the sky, and note here and there patches of dark 
wood on the hills around. At such a season as this 
there is little else to be enjoyed, for the snow is no re- 
specter of nature's features ; be they stern or soft, beau- 



Haligonian. 31 

tiful or tame, varied or monotonous, it covers all alike. 
But in the bright, gay summer-time, as I saw it after, 
Halifax has its own share of beauty. Built on the 
slope of a hill, facing the neck of a magnificent harbour, 
with abundant room to expand in all directions land- 
ward, and deep water for ships along the wharves sea- 
ward, with a fine climate and large trade, the stranger 
has a right to look for a city with the visible marks of 
prosperity on its face. Nor is he disappointed. For 
he can walk some miles through streets with fair houses 
and good shops, sprinkled here and there with build- 
ings of more important pretensions and better style of 
architecture. He will observe the streets to be well laid 
out, and increasing in breadth as they stretch toward 
the country ; that there is a style about the greater 
part of the well-to-do houses bespeaking the substantial 
comfort of the English home within ; and, lastly, that 
many of the streets are lined with noble trees, which, 
not only in the balsamic fragrance of their blossoms in 
spring, but afterwards in the flickering shadows thrown 
across the highways, add much to the enjoyment of the 
citizens. Standing on the crest of the parapet of the 
citadel, and taking a traveller's glance at all beneath ; 
the city sloping to the water's edge, with its thirty 
thousand inhabitants ; the busy wharves crowded with 
ships ; the lines of broad road stretching on all sides 
like a giant network into the distance, entangling in 
the meshes farms and villas often half-hid by wood or 
thicket ; the blue harbour, island-guarded from the sea, 
and expanding, as it recedes landward, into a noble 



32 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

basin ; or, lastly, as the eye follows the wake of the 
little steamer to its landing-place at the pretty suburb 
opposite, and notes the villas and farms concealed upon 
the hills, as they undulate and deepen in the distance — 
all is to the outward eye prosperity and advancement. 
No doubt, as in other human lots, there are cankers 
within, but the impression gleaned from the sur- 
face glance leave pleasant things for the memory to 
dwell on. 

A large place now, yet the nucleus of a mighty city, 
the capital of the England of the New World. Yet it 
is not so long ago, little more than a century, that 
Lord Oornwallis laid its foundations, and foresaw the 
progress of an emporium commenced within the shelter 
of such a noble harbour. With a climate fit to work 
in to the greenest old age ; in which the fruits of the 
earth ripen abundantly; with its coasts swarming with 
fish ; with a position commanding the commerce of two 
great continents ; with shelters and estuaries in which 
old ocean ebbs and flows, with daily invitation to build 
the ships which ride his bosom ; with timbers and cattle, 
and the bed of the earth replete with coal and minerals 
beyond all calculation; with a free government and 
equality for all religions in the commencement of its 
career, it is in truth hard to calculate to what state of 
civilisation and grandeur such a country might in years 
upon years advance. The world has never yet seen 
such a commencement with such advantages. This is 
the true England in the New World. Let us hope she 
may be worthy of her progress and position. 



Haligonian. 33 

Little did I think, as I made these reflections on 
descending the hill of the citadel, what an unwilling 
opportunity I was about to have of seeing the country 
in its whole length, and, alack ! present dreariness. 

It so happened that, on leaving the ship for the 
shore, I had brought a favourite cat for a run or a 
little lovemaking with the blue-nosed feline beauties, 
as Tom might happen to find it. How it came to pass 
that we two were fellow-travellers through this hard 
world was in this wise. 

Five years before this time it was my fate to be 
quartered at that delectable hole, Port Eoyal, Jamaica. 
Built at the extremity of a long sandspit running into 
the sea, with a nigger town on the interior side, and 
beyond that a huge burying-ground called the " Pali- 
sades," with neither food to eat, books to read, nor 
people to speak to, with the thermometer at 84°, and 
swarms of sandflies at intervals, — dissolution, disgust, 
and dreariness, are but feeble names wherewith to 
describe the existence we submitted to. Now and then 
there was the sharp shock of an earthquake, often 
serious enough, as history can tell, in these parts ; but 
the enemy we dreaded was like the Almighty of old, 
neither in the wind, nor the earthquake, nor the fire, 
but in the still small voice which ever and anon whis- 
pered each morning of death, sudden death to the 
strongest as well as to the most feeble of our little band 
of exiles. The archangel who so terribly brooded over 
our destinies was the fatal yellow-fever of the American 
tropics. At the moment of which I am speaking, there 



34 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

were living in the barracks facing the little parade 
thirteen people. Of these, within three weeks, we 
buried seven, two went to England more dead than 
alive, three recovered, and one escaped attack alto- 
gether. 

Among those who died was the doctor's wife, the 
kindest creature and the tenderest nurse to all about 
her. This bereavement, together with the fatigue he 
underwent, broke the poor doctor down ; and he was 
ordered to England on sick-leave. I saw him off by the 
mail-packet one morning at daybreak, and as I looked 
into his face, I saw in it that unmistakable yellow- 
leaden hue, too well known as the forerunner of the fatal 
messenger. I pressed the hand of a dead man in wish- 
ing him good-bye. The packet, on its return, told us 
that he was struck by Yellow Jack the next day, and 
died the following evening, after a brief twenty-four 
hours of intense suffering. 

A month, and the scourge had passed. I was writing 
in the afternoon, when suddenly along the verandah I 
heard the cries of a cat mewing piteously. In another 
instant a large white -and-gray Tom entered the room, 
keeping up his cry with increased fervour, and looking 
at me with unabashed confidence, just as if I was an old 
acquaintance. And so I was, for I recognised my visitor 
as the doctor's favourite, who used to sit on the break- 
fast-table between him and his wife. Now he was a 
scarecrow, and mewing away at me for his very life, as 
much as to say — 

"Look at me, your old friend Tom, deserted by his 



Haligonian. 35 

friends — nothing to eat ; isn't it shameful ? Give us 
something, for pity's sake." 

I wondered at first, until I thought of his trials, that 
the doctor had not found a home for him. Then I sent 
out my black boy for a little milk, and breaking up some 
bread into a saucer, put it before Tom. It did me good 
to see the fellow eat it. Then up he jumped on the 
table, looked at me steadily, as if to say, " You 11 do for 
me ;" and, quite regardless of my ink and paper, set to 
work to lick himself all over, which being accomplished 
to his satisfaction, he curled up on my blotting-book for 
a good nap. From that moment he never left the pre- 
mises, and at the end of a week we were the best of 
friends. 

However, at that period the health-officer of the port 
paid me a morning visit, and no sooner did he spy Tom, 
asleep, as usual, on the table, than he exclaimed, "Why, 
there's our cat: the doctor gave him to my little Lucy, 
but he bolted two days after, and we 've never seen him 
since ; we thought he had gone back to his old quarters 
and died." 

I was in great hopes the little girl would not claim 
him ; but in an hour a little black negress came running 
in, crying— 

" De missy him beg de buckra for her pussy." So poor 
Tom was forcibly collared and carried off. 

It was a week after this again, somewhere about the 
middle of a scorching hot night, when I was tossing 
about panting for cool air, half asleep and half awake, 
that, all of a sudden, I was startled by a low noise near 



36 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

my pillow, and immediately felt something very soft and 
very warm rubbing gently against my head. Just as I 
was about to give a shout to startle the intruder, it 
happily flashed across my mind that it was the cat, who 
had found his way back ; and a cautious glance across 
the dim light revealed this to be the fact. There he 
was behind my pillow, bending forward his great bull 
head and purring to himself as he butted it upon mine. 
" Here you are ; I Ve found you again." Then he turned 
his head the other side for another rub. " I 'm so glad 
to see you ; say the same to me." So he rubbed and 
purred away until tired. When quite satisfied with his 
proceedings, he stepped gingerly down to my feet, curled 
up, and fell asleep. 

Flesh and blood were not proof against this, though 
hitherto I had never felt any peculiar marks of affec- 
tion for the pussy tribe. But it matters very little what 
it is, whether a child, a clog, a cat, or any other pet ; 
what the human heart demands for its love is confidence, 
and confidence in itself soon begets love. Tom, this 
strange cat, deserted by his old friends, by death also, 
had shown extraordinary confidence in me, and I deter- 
mined we should not part in future. So I made a doll- 
bargain with the young lady, and soon rejoiced in un- 
doubted ownership of the little animal. He accompanied 
me to England and to twenty different quarters therein ; 
and when we had to pay the penalty for Captain Wilkes' 
bombast, my wife said, " Take Tom, and he will 
amuse you on board." So he did ; forming an especial 
friendship with the purser's steward, who vowed, with 



Haligonian. 37 

the execution he performed on the rats, that he " earned 
his grub and worked his passage well, he did." 

Thus it happened that, afraid to leave Tom in a 
strange ship, where, unknown, he might be ill-used, 
perhaps chucked overboard by the steward's assistants, 
I brought him ashore to my friend's house, where the 
children gave the old fellow a most humorous wel- 
come, feeding him up to the eyes, and pulling his ears 
and tail in strict proportions to their hospitality. So we 
were both of us well entertained, and went to sleep once 
more on shore rejoicing. 

The next morning the gale blew more furiously than 
ever ; and when at ten o'clock my servant said the cap- 
tain had come ashore and declared he was not going to 
sea, we all prepared thankfully for another pleasant day 
together. The misfortunes began by the children run- 
ning in to say that Tom had gone outside to take a walk, 
and spying a great hole in the ground had bolted clown 
it. We found that he had gone into an open drain in 
search of game, and far away underground we heard 
a faint, pitiful " miew," the only answer all the calling 
and coaxing could elicit. The weather was bitterly 
cold ; the thermometer below zero, and threatening to 
snow hard. 

" If the snow blocks up the mouth of the drain he'll 
perish to-night," said my friend. " I '11 see if I can find 
a man to dig him out." 

The pickaxe was well into the ground, when right 
behind us, from the middle of the harbour, the boom of 
a gun caused us to turn round quickly. 



38 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

" Why, it's from the Tuscaloosa! What does it mean ? 
She has the Blue Peter flying." 

"What! it's only an hour ago the captain sent to 
say he was not going to sea, and it 's blowing harder 
than ever." 

The man plied the pickaxe into the frozen ground 
well ; but, alas ! poor Tom was frightened with the 
noise, and retreated into channels as we advanced, the 
pitiful " miews" becoming fainter than before. 

Bang went another gun from the Tuscaloosa. I 
began to feel very uneasy. 

" Oh ! " said my friend, " I '11 tell you what it is : it 's 
a ruse to get her sailors off. I daresay they were on 
leave last night, and are drunk about the town." 

" It 's impossible he can be going to sea ; it's blowing 
a hurricane dead against him." And again we set to 
work on the release of the little prisoner. 

It was beginning to snow, and threatening heavily 
from the north-west. I encouraged the man with pro- 
mises of reward, and well he worked for nearly half an 
hour. We had almost forgotten the Tuscaloosa, when 
the boom of a gun down the harbour made us turn 
round again, and we saw the report proceeded from the 
side of a frigate from which a signal fluttered as well. 

"Look!'' cried W , "the Tuscaloosa's answer- 
ing ; and, halloa ! what 's this ? she 's got her steam up. 
Ton my soul I think she's going to sea after all." 

Could it be possible ? Heavens ! what should I do ? 
Why should the captain send such a message ? Another 
gun from her side, and the paddles took a few revolu- 



Haligonian. 31) 

tions forward to short-heave the anchor. W dashed 

to put to his horse, while I rushed for my carpet-bag and 
desk. In ten minutes we were down on Cunard's wharf, 
and thence saw the steamer slowly steaming down the 
harbour. 

Not a boat was to be seen ; and in a minute she could 
barely be distinguished through the whirling, blinding 
snow. I was horror-struck at the situation — men, bag- 
gage, command, all gone away, off to Newfoundland, and 
I left on shore here. I groaned loudly, and consigned 
the captain freely to Gehenna. 

" It's not the captain's fault, I can assure you," said 
a cheery voice behind. We, turning round, beheld the 
pleasant face and goodly form of William Cunard, 
omnipotent in all these matters in Halifax. 

" Not the captain's fault ! " I exclaimed, in vehement 
heat ; " why, not two hours ago, he " 

" I know," said the merchant-admiral. " I know all 
about it. It was the frigate there, which came in about 
two hours ago, did it. Her captain, who is an awful 
Tartar, saw the Tuscaloosa lying there ready for sea, 
and ordered her out at once. There was a tremendous 
scramble on board ; and I suspect others are left behind 
besides you." 

"And are there no means of catching her ? " 

"I doubt if even you could have got off now," he 
replied; "but I'll tell you what you do. She was to 
go to Sydney in Cape Breton to coal for England. She'll 
be a week coaling. The mail starts overland to- morrow 
Take a place, and you '11 catch her there." 



40 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

A good straw, indeed, thrown out to a drowning man, 
and gladly I clutched at it. There was only the proper 
explanation to be given at headquarters, and obtain 
leave to carry out my scheme. It was, of course, neces- 
sary to express great regret at the misadventure, and 
receive the general's reprimand. These matters officially 
are always, and very properly, measured by their success 
or results ; intentions or accidents not being taken into 
account. However, all 's well that ends well. I made 
apologies and peace, obtaining leave to go overland to 
Sydney and rejoin the Tuscaloosa. 

Before reaching my destination I found the penance 
to pay was amply sufficient. Nearly two hundred and 
fifty miles in an open sleigh across the boundless tracks 
of ice and snow, with a temperature far below zero ! 
Most travellers describe countries which they pass 
through in the prime of summer ; and here I have an 
opportunity of reversing the medal, and presenting the 
bleak side to view. Bismallah ! let us see it. Che 
sara sara. 





CHAPTER IV. 

INTO THE BREAST OF WINTER. 

HE journey from Halifax across the length 
of Xova Scotia really commences from the 
little town of Truro, some sixty miles 
from the capital, to which a rail winds 
through a level country, round the head of the 
noble harbour ; through pine-wood clearings, little 
lakes dammed up ; past farms, sawmills, and the 
solitary charcoal-burner's hut : all sparsely scattered 
here and there, as signs of a country still but par- 
tially occupied by man. These died gradually out as 
we left Halifax, and commenced again on our approach 
to Truro. The town itself appeared to be a collection 
of wooden villas and cottages, of unpretending archi- 
tecture, the abodes of well-to-do people, by whom the 
blessings of religion, judging by the various spires 
dotted among the houses, were by no means neglected. 
There was a large open square at the end of the street, 
with the little inn in the corner from which the mail- 
cars started, and about which — best of all signs — not a 
single beggar gathered. Looking about, we saw the 
jsign of rural prosperity in this little township ; one day, 






42 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

perhaps not far distant, to become the more consider- 
able market-town and emporium of the produce of the 
great plains which surround it. It needs but to look at 
the well-featured, sturdy men, and well-dressed women, 
who gather round the doors of the inn to hear the news 
from Halifax, to speak with confidence of an approach- 
ing time, in which, under their hands and the hands of 
their children, this country shall rise in its own greatness, 
a check to the ambition of its overgrown neighbour. A 
comely race, in truth, they were, pleasant to behold and 
pleasant to hear, with a speech unempoisoned by the 
easy, ready-lying brogue. Brown hair and beards, blue 
eyes, huge fists, and strong Yankee hatred, were the 
leading tokens which a stranger rapidly gathered of this 
people ; good signs — none better — of future strength 
and freedom. 

This is all I noted in very truth. Can a man passing 
rapidly through a township half-buried beneath the 
white morsels of heaven, do much more while waiting 
for the horses of the mail-car to be buckled to ? Less 
than an hour sufficed to do this, when the driver invited 
us to be seated on the sleigh ; an article about a foot off 
the ground, looking much like a slice clipped off three 
pews of a [modern Methodist church. Stout buffalo 
robes covered the passengers well over the breasts ; the 
luggage was strapped behind ; the driver, a cheery 
young man, jumped up on a little flat perch on the 
corner of the front pew, shook up the reins, cracked his 
whip, woke the bells of the four horses into a merry 
peal, and we dashed through the embryo square of 



Into the Breast of Winter. 43 

Truro, up a side street, across a bridge, and away into 
the open country, guided by the rough picket fences 
stuck along the snow. It was a capital start, and if we 
could have kept it up, should quickly have covered forty 
or fifty miles. But soon after we left the shelter of some 
little pine woods a few miles out, the snow became very 
thin upon the road, and the runners grated dismally on 
our ears. The driver was off and on to his perch like 
a bird every five minutes, coaxing the poor brutes to 
struggle against the tremendous friction of such a load. 
At length Jehu pulled up. 

" I 'm very sorry you must jump out, please, and walk 
this bit. I 'm most afraid we shall have the same thing- 
all the way." 

i: It snowed hard yesterday," observed a passenger. 

"So it did ; but there 's been a smartish wind all 
night, and drove it all up against the fences. We shall 
make but poor travelling of it if this goes on." 

Go on it did all day, and long after nightfall ; but it 
had this advantage, that it warmed the feet, which 
otherwise had sad times of it. Twice we stopped at 
shanties along the road side, built by new settlers, as 
the clearings from the forest close by appeared to indi- 
cate. Perhaps they should be called small farms, and 
not shanties ; for although things were in a rough-and- 
ready sort of style inside and outside, still there were 
three or four apartments to the house, and outhouses for 
the cattle into the bargain. We found at each place 
ready, roughly laid out, with very primitive cutlery, 
steak, eggs, toast, tea, and potatoes. It would be hard 



44 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

to call the preparation breakfast, inasmuch as it was 
furnished for lunch as well ; again for dinner, and again 
for supper, without the minutest variation. But for all 
that there were several little things worthy of notice. 
The good woman, to my surprise, not only summoned 
us to meals, but sat with bare arms fresh from the 
stove at the head of the table, pouring out the tea, yet 
receiving the first attentions from the toast and steak, 
and sharing in all respects the repast with us. Though 
but a rude farmer's wife, still she was our hostess, and a 
lady then and there in her own undoubted right. The 
same principle prevailed everywhere, as I found after- 
wards, in these colonies ; and when the lady was young 
and pretty, as happily was sometimes the case, the 
custom was not amiss. At any rate, it never proved 
unpleasant or inconvenient, and in its primitiveness was 
entitled to respect. 

The driver, too, took his meals with us at the end of 
the table ; yet it was to be observed, when all the pas- 
sengers took a " nip " just before re-entering the sleigh, 
he invariably, though pressed, refused. "Don't ask him," 
said one good woman; "they never touch: they are 
sworn not to do it when on duty with the cars." To 
make amends for this abstinence, good meals, at regular 
distances during the day and night, are provided. It 
is, no doubt, a wise precaution ; for the journey at this 
season, as we shall soon see, is not without its dangers, 
requiring a cool head and strong arm at sundry times ; 
the more necessary for the safety of travellers almost 
helpless themselves at such sudden moments of trial. 



Into the Breast of Winter. 45 

Thus we sped through the bitter day, crouching be- 
neath the "buffaloes," jumping out to walk over the 
" bare," and munching steaks with tea dilutions when- 
ever we changed horses. Great slices of the country 
were cleared for the farmer's use ; and the heads of the 
picket fences projecting above the snow told us of fields 
which, when awakened from their winter sleep, were 
gay with green and gold and crimson, or bejewelled 
with the fat kine, now cooped up in gloomy stalls, and 
wearying for these joyous pastures. True, the features 
of the country now were, as Elizabeth Barrett grandly 

says — 

" Looking equal in one snow ; " 

but the undulating hills, falling and rising here and 
there, spoke plainly of beauty when the winter shroud 
was gone. Grandeur and sublimity of scenery there 
was not ; yet, again, the little forests, thick with hem- 
lock, pine, and birch, through which the many spark- 
ling rills, bursting through the matted copses, ran to 
join the prouder stream of the deeper valley beyond, 
sent back the thoughts into summer and autumn, with 
pleasant visions of much loveliness. Easily could I 
credit that it was a country in which the hard-working 
man could live at ease and be happy. 

So sped on the day : the clear sky, across which siffi- 
lated the keen north wind, deepening gradually into 
darkness. As the light fled, so grew the cold, and more 
crisply each moment sounded the hoofs of the cattle 
upon the crystal road. We were yet many miles from 
our first halting-place, when suddenly, on the crest of a 



46 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

hill, the driver pulled up and looked well ahead, lost 
apparently for the minute in reflection. Before us, at 
the bottom of a steep decline, lay a wide frozen streamlet, 
across which a tressel-bridge, unguarded by side rails, 
stretched its spidery arms. Like the road, the bridge 
was a mass of glare ice, the polish of which, with the 
mercury at 26° below zero, was as dangerous as it was 
perfect. 

" You must walk over this, if you please, gentlemen," 
said the driver ; " the bridge is too narrow, and a slue 
might be dangerous." 

Out we jumped, and no sooner out than down went 
another passenger and myself on the ice, whence, in 
spite of all our frantic struggles, it was impossible to 
rise. There is no word in the language that I know of 
to express the smoothness of glare ice at a very low 
temperature. However, we stood the laugh at our mis- 
fortunes from the others, who had sparrables in their 
shoes, or creepers underneath. 

" We '11 help them over," they cried to the driver ; 
while he, gathering his reins short, and waking up the 
nags, went smartly down the hill, over the bridge in a 
canter, and was on the crest of the opposite side before 
we could count ten. 

" Now, then," said our Samaritan friends to us cripples 
in the ditch, " lay on your backs, and give us your hands, 
and we 11 cross you over." 

Bumping, sliding, laughing, just like a dead bullock 
I was dragged down in the wake of the car. As they 
tramped over the planks, we could hear beneath the 



Into the Breast of Winter. 47 

frozen surface the torrent roaring as it fretted across 
the hidden rocks of its bed. Well they laughed at 
us going down-hill, but groaned as they went up the 
incline ; we, chuckling inwardly, now hoping they 
enjoyed the dead pull of two hundred pounds up an 
angle of thirty-five degrees. By the time we were all 
up at the top, and they had propped us against the face 
of the hedge, it was hard to say who had had the best 
of it ; but the chorus of merriment broke the ice among 
us effectually, and thawed us into capital friendship for 
the rest of the day's journey. 

This, at any rate, cannot be described further than 
that, with the mantle of night overhead, and the mantle 
of winter underfoot, blotting all nature entirely from 
sight, at about ten o'clock we arrived at the little town 
of New Glasgow, and pulled up before a small wooden 
auberge. On the principle of any port in a storm, the 
stuffy little parlour was an agreeable change to travel- 
lers more than half frozen in the strictest sense of the 
word. Yet, when the driver came to tell us that the 
roads were so bad, he would not go on until the morn- 
ing, so uncomfortable was the prospect that I felt half 
sorrow for his decision. The place was engrained in 
dirt. It was not the fact of what is called " roughing 
it" which made the thing disagreeable. To that I had 
been well accustomed. But to foul air and filth, dust- 
tracks over the chairs, saharas in filth on the cornices, 
piles of half-stupified flies, spiders' webs, and spittle in 
all stages of evaporation, I entertain a mortal objection. 
When was the den purified, or the holey carpet swept, 



48 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

or the dirty table-cloth, which the maid sprawled over 
the table, washed ? Maid ! it is a profanation to use 
such a term connected with the brawny-armed slattern 
who jumped about and slapped the things down as a 
savage might have done. But the cause soon received 
explanation. At a joke which passed between two of 
the passengers, the creature paused in her work, and, to 
my amazement, placing her arms against her hips, 
burst into a hoarse laugh, which shook the very rafters 
over our head. 

" Oi, oi, oi, oi, be the blessed! but that's thrue for ye, 
mister ; oi, oi, oi, oi ! " 

The creature was Irish of the lowest type, and so was 
the mistress, who soon after, with the steak and eggs, 
toast, potatoes, and tea, came in to preside. The 
house was Irish ; not that that is altogether as a necessity 
a bad recommendation, yet it certainly is when it be- 
longs to the less-refined class of that restless nation. 
Worse luck, for the food too was dirty ; the forks inde- 
scribable. Hot tea one was obliged to swallow ; then I 
munched some biscuits, and asked the creature I had 
irreverently called a maid " If I could have a bed ? " 

" Oi '11 see," quoth she. 

" And if so, could I have a fire ?" 

"Is it a foire?" quoth she, again; " begorra, it's 
more than oi know." 

However, in half an hour she showed me up a narrow 
stair into a room, which, to my unutterable disgust, 
was so full of suffocating coal smoke that one could not 
distinguish her figure when she was a yard inside the door. 



Into the Breast of Winter. 49 

11 The divvil run away with the fireplace/' cried she; 
"it's the thrick it's always behaving with me." One 
way of accounting for it certainly, considering that it 
was a register stove, and when she lighted the fire she 
forgot to open the register in the chimney. They cer- 
tainly are right in the Times when they say in the 
advertisements, " No Irish need apply." 

She slammed the poker up the chimney, and burst 
the windows open, advising me to go back to the par- 
lour for half an hour. This I did, and when I returned 
and shut the windows down to keep out a temperature of 
35° below zero, no pen could describe what the state of 
that room was. It suffices to say, that the coarse sheets 
and blankets upon the bed were frozen hard as boards, 
and that the possibility of rest was gone. There was 
nothing for it but to return a third time to the cob- 
webbed parlour, roll my cloak well round, and lie down 
alongside the stove till daybreak. This was nothing in 
itself ; but with eight or nine snorers in a dirty den ten 
feet square, it was something to be endured. Faugh ! 

The cold at daybreak culminated to its highest point 
during the journey. As the sun rose in the heavens, 
cerulean and cloudless, we saw that we travelled through 
a country bound under a mighty spell. The streams no 
longer ran ; the woodman's axe was silent in the woods ; 
both kine and poultry in the farmer's yard had sought 
the shelter of the stables ; and not a human being or a 
sleigh did we meet for many consecutive hours. Dur- 
ing the short continuance of what is called "a cold 
snap," every creature with warm blood in the veins, for 



50 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

dear life, seeks shelter. Happily there was no wind. 
Had there been, it would have been impossible to travel. 
This we felt whenever we lost the shelter of the pine 
woods and the road wound to face the north, for then 
the current of air caused by our motion seemed to con- 
centrate the bitterness of the frost upon us. Coat, 
hair, whiskers, moustaches, were all hung with icicles ; 
so, crouching beneath the " buffaloes," we had naught to 
do but to wish for the end of the day's journey, which, 
to all appearance, was as likely to pass along as free 
from adventure as it was miserable. 

We were, however, early in the afternoon, rapidly and 
sufficiently roused from our lethargy. The road wound 
along the edge of a deep, thinly-wooded ravine, in 
which, some two hundred feet below, we could see the 
tops of the pines and birches fringed with drooping 
feathers of snow ; on our left the high bank, the con- 
tinuation of the side of the gorge, out of which the road 
had been cut. Turning suddenly a corner, there lay 
before us a carpet of glare ice, caused by a little stream 
which overflowed the road at this point. Necessarily 
it sloped towards the ravine, and no sooner were we on 
it than the sleigh gave a jerk to the right, then an- 
other. The driver, seeing the danger, shouted to the 
horses ; but, with a tremendous slue, the vehicle swung 
round as on a pivot, and hung over the edge of the 
brink. Bursting the " buffaloes," out jumped the front 
passengers, but our wraps, tightly packed, would not 
yield an inch. Horrible was it to hear the scraping 
and yielding of the horses' hoofs, as the increasing 



Into the Breast of Winter. 51 

weight of the unsupported sleigh overpowered their 
strength. It was but a moment of agony, shouting, 
and suspense ; when over, over, over, yielding inch by 
inch, backwards we slipped into— destruction ! No, as 
it mercifully happened, we were caught, just as the 
hind feet of the leader was at the edge, by a stout fir 
tree, which, had we missed, we must have gone head- 
long into eternity. A branch stretched within reach, 
across which, in ten seconds, with bumping heart, and 
blood suddenly revivified, I was sitting surveying the 
wreck. 

Sharp and quick as the cracking of his whip came 
from the mouth of our driver orders on the crisis. 

11 Unbuckle the traces — stand to the heads of the 
shatters — keep 'em down — run, if you please, straight 
ahead, not half a mile — call the miller — bring ropes — 
sit still in the sleigh — for God's sake, sit still — if she 
moves off you 're gone." 

In less time than it has taken to write it, the traces 
were loosened, and the leaders released ; while the shaft 
horses, happily bogged tight in snow and brushwood, 
were also made powerless to struggle. There was a 
little barrister from Sydney, now travelling homewards 
who proved himself a trump at the moment of diffi- 
culty, cutting in and out about the horses' heels with 
the confidence of a Karey. He now sat at the heads of 
the shaft horses, and in reply to the pitiful entreaties of 
the two passengers still in the sleigh, he said — 

" Now, I tell you what it is, this ain't a joking mat- 
ter ; if you attempt to get out I'll let their heads up, 



52 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

and you'll be in 'kingdom come' in less than five 
minutes." 

What an agreeable announcement to the poor devils, 
hanging by their eyelids over an unfathomable preci- 
pice for thirty minutes, which in this world they will 
never forget. At the end of that time we heard the 
joyful sound of approaching help, soon realised by the 
presence of the miller and his three stout sons. With 
ropes fastened round our waists, we were soon dragged 
on to the road ; the traces were cut, the sleigh fastened 
to the trees, and the horses released as well. Then 
quickly were hauled up the boxes, and lastly the 
vehicle itself, smashed well in behind, with shafts 
cracked short as carrots, and the iron runners burst 
below. Till now, not a word had passed between the 
miller and the driver, but when all was safe on the 
road, the latter, taking off his hat, and wiping a brow 
over which rivers of perspiration flowed — 

" Ah ! the de'il mend ye, Jock — the de'il mend ye ! " 
cried he, shaking his brawny fist ; "it's come at last, 
and might hae cost us a' our lives. Is this yer promise, 
which ye hae made fifty times, to cut the trees along the 
edge ? The shame on ye, Jock — the shame on ye, 
Jock ! " 

" Now, Sandy, man, what's this ye' re saying?" replied 
the miller, " talking thus, when ye oughten to be giving 
praise that ye're off so well. Maybe I am to blame, 
but the snap last night came on so sudden." 

" Sudden ! " said Sandy, in a voice more mollified, for 
they were old friends. 






Into the Breast of Winter. 53 

" No matter, Sandy ; we're all wrong sometimes : 
let 's get the sleigh down to the mill, and we'll soon put 
you to rights. Jamie, take the axe, and lop down three 
or four of those trees, and lay 'em along the edge. I'm 
very thankful it's no waur, Sandy, God be praised ! " 

And as Jack, the miller, lifted his hat in speaking, 
the last words echoed in many of our hearts I believe, 
though not spoken aloud. Sandy stretched out his 
hand and grasped that of his friend. "We soon heard 
the roaring of the mill-stream at the end of the pine 
wood, where lived and ground his corn this jolly and 
sensible miller. His mill lay snugly in the middle of a 
little hollow, through which wound a mountain stream, 
now crystalled in its winter sleep ; while very picturesque 
against the white hills stood the red-tiled roofs, the 
brown old wheel and bridges. Gaily the miller peeled 
his home-spun coat, and called his sons about him, 
bidding them light the forge, run out the anvil, blow 
up the furnace, and strike stalwart blows with him 
upon our broken vehicle^ In less than two hours the 
runners are spliced, the baggage is repacked, and Sandy, 
the driver, is yo-ho-ing his flock together. 

" Weel, Jock," cried he, stretching his hand to the 
miller, "I '11 no say but ye ha dune us a gude turn, 
for bye it was yoursel that " 

" You'll just be saying naething about it this time ; 
I'm glad to work, and wish it were better." 

" Shall I no charge it, then, agen the maister, Jock ?" 

"You'll just charge naething, Sandy; and let us be 
thankful my over-forget fulness came to no waur." So 



54 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

the brave miller lifted his hat, wishing us God-speed ; 
and again the sleigh bells rang sharply through the 
frosted air, until at ten o'clock they ceased for that day 
before a clean little hostelry in the biggest street ot 
Antigonish. There we took off our numberless wraps 
in the parlour, to see the table spread with the everlast- 
ing steak and potatoes, eggs, toast, and tea ; yet, mar- 
vellous difference ! neatness and cleanliness were visible 
everywhere ; and when the hostess took her seat at the 
tea-tray, one felt, from the tone and texture of her 
attire, that a good bedroom and night's rest was a pos- 
sible perspective. Nor were we disappointed ; the less 
so when, after the sweet clean sheets hot from the kit- 
chen-fire were spread upon the bed, the tall Scotch 
landlord, himself a pensioner and olim an officer's 
servant, brought up great jugs of boiling water, a bath, 
and abundance of towelling. The night thus passed in 
the thriving little town, with the queer old Indian 
name, must indeed be marked with a red letter in the 
diary of an unwilling winter traveller in Nova Scotia. 




*$* 



CHAPTER V. 



UNDER THE BUFFALO ROBES. 




ILLINGLY could a traveller, weary and half- 
starved with cold, have indulged in a long 
snooze under that clean Scotch roof ; but an 
early knock before daybreak summoned us 
down to the discussion of " the inevitable steaks and 
eggs, the toast, potatoes, and tea." A long journey was 
before us ; the Gut of Canso was to be crossed before 
night, requiring, at this season, a favourable opportunity. 
Dismally sounded the bells as the sleigh hurried us 
through the streets of the little town, still hushed in 
sleep. Bitter was the cold as we lost the shelter of the 
houses and breasted the hills ; on the opposite fall of 
which, far, far away, lay the sister colony of Cape Bre- 
ton. Nothing to see but one eternal snow ; nothing to 
do but to shrink beneath the " buffaloes" as far as pos- 
sible, and let fate do its worst. 

However, we had a little diversion at noon, which 
roused us up for a few minutes in a droll sort of way. 
We had stopped for lunch at the little inn where the 






. r )G Lost Amid the Fogs. ' 

horses changed, and were seated round a rickety table, 
discussing " the steak and eggs, the toast, potatoes, and 
tea," when, without a shadow of warning, the man on 
my left lifted his arms high above his head, gave a yell 
which in any other temperature would have turned the 
blood cold, and, tumbling backward with his chair, lifted 
the table reversely with his legs, of course upsetting the 
concern with a stupendous crash. For the first instant 
of astonishment little could be heard save cries and 
oaths, as the various parties were saturated with hot 
liquids, grease, or milk ; then the little barrister, escap- 
ing from a bath of gravy and onions, ran to the fallen 
passenger, exclaiming — 

" My ! the man has an epileptic fit." 

So it was ; and dreadful was the struggle for escape 
of the soul within — the foaming lips, the fixed staring 
eyes, the life-rending convulsions — to behold. Poor 
fellow ! he was quickly lifted to a sofa, neckcloth 
loosened, ice rubbed on his face, hands chafed, and salts 
applied to the nostrils, until he gradually acquired a 
kind of half consciousness, in which state he was lifted 
again into the sleigh, and propped with coats as best we 
could under the " buffaloes/' Then the little barrister 
whispered that he was a Scotch engineer, travelling 
down with another of our party to pump water out of 
the Sydney mines ; that, on arrival at Halifax, he had 
ran loose for a week or so, going to bed "mellow" by 
night ; and now, during the journey, refreshing by a 
solid "nip" whenever the sleigh stopped. This I had 
observed, but seeing it had no effect on him, thought 



Under the Buffalo Boles. 57 

nothing of it. But Nature will not be denied altogether. 
Had he got drunk daily all would have been compara- 
tively well with him ; but his constitution acted differ- 
ently. The fiery spirit heated the blood to fever-point 
within, and the bitter cold condensed it from without. 
There was no safety-valve left : so the fire, flying to the 
brain at last, overturned the cauldron of its wrath upon 
the most vital point. 

Still we travelled on, over the crest of hills where be- 
yond on the horizon lay the broad St Lawrence. As we 
wound down lower and lower we could see nothing of 
the bright blue waters of the gulf ; but far as the eye 
could range it was white with ice, and differing only 
from the land in the angular form of the great blocks 
piled along the margin. 

Down, lower and lower, from the heights of the hills, 
through gaps wherein the track ran round in great cir- 
cular coils towards a distant village ; crack went the 
driver's whip, crack, crack ; and very busy were the 
bells as we rattled down the slope. The little barrister 
was turning anxious glances towards the west, where a 
great bank of indigo was darkly looming. " Surely/' 
said he at length to the driver, "it's not so cold as it 
was." 

' : Xo, sir ; but I hope we shall cross the Gut before 
that snow-storm breaks on us/' 

The boatmen, standing at the entrance of the shanty 
at the foot of the hill, shook their heads as we jumped 
from the car. The Gut was full of floating ice, passing 
rapidly through ; and no boat was safe in crossing the 



58 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

narrow stream which, passing through a cleft in the 
hills about a mile in breadth, divides Nova Scotia from 
Cape Breton. We followed the driver to where the 
margin of the water should have been, and certainly 
the prospect was not inviting. On either side, fringing 
the land for the width of quarter of a mile, the ice was 
blocked solidly ; while between the shores, in the open 
water, we could see the great blocks sweeping down the 
channel. A boat nipped between them, or even struck, 
would be cracked like a walnut; and, as a warning, 
standing sharp against the white hills opposite, were 
the tall masts of a ship, wrecked in a snow-storm two 
days previously. " No," said the driver, " it ain't to be 
done ; we must bide the slack of the tide." 

Slowly and sadly we turned to wait two weary hours 
in the shanty, where, save the excitement of drinking 
bad spirits and water, there was nothing to be done. An 
hour must have slipped away, during which the noisy 
voices had sunk into torpidity, when, happening to kick 
a bit of old newspaper with my foot, I picked it up as a 
godsend. It proved to be part of a fresh American 
journal, and, among other items, contained an account 
of the death and burial of the Prince Consort. There 
were extracts from the English papers in great variety. 
Just as we left England, many articles in the magazines, 
from gifted pens, had touched the fame and virtues of 
the wise and prudent prince not unworthily ; yet I did 
not remember having seen anything which surpassed in 
beauty the thoughts in the ragged scrap of the Yan- 
kee paper on the floor of the boatmen's hut at Canso. 



Under the Buffalo Robes. 59 

It may be some in England would like them as well, 
so here they are : — 

" THREE LITTLE WREATHS. 

" When the royalty of England was engaged in the 
solemn duty of burying the dead of the palace, a few 
weeks ago, among the ceremonials which fittingly at- 
tended the entombing of a prince, nothing was so touch- 
ing, nothing so profoundly suggestive, as the laying of 
those three wreaths of moss and violets on his coffin — 
the simple token of a daughter's love. It has been re- 
marked among thoughtful persons that, in the numerous 
accounts we have had of the last hours of Prince Albert, 
nothing has been said of any religious ceremonies ; nor 
is it known whether the earthly prince was reminded, or 
was able to be reminded, of the fact that he was about 
entering a presence where the forms of earthly courts 
do not exist, and where the garments to be worn are 
neither of the purple of human royalty nor of the pattern 
of human approval. It would have been well to say of 
him that he died in the Christian faith, and to leave on 
record, in connexion with his last hours on earth, some- 
thing whereby we might gather how the English nation 
regard the death of a prince in his descent to the level 
of human nature. But, from aught that appears, no 
one seems to have thought of him as anything but a 
dead prince, to be embalmed and buried with the royal 
dead of England. 

" No one except those children, who, in the presence 
of the grim monarch, forgot their own line, its preroga- 



60 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

lives and power, while they laid on the coffin of their 
father the token of undying love, the emblems of resur- 
rection and reunion hereafter. 

" It is the smallest but most meaning incident in the 
funeral story. A thousand years hence it may be that 
some explorer will be searching among the ruins of 
Windsor for relics of the ancient days. Should he find 
that vault, where the kings and their children lie, he 
will wonder at the splendour of the gilded coffins, at the 
trappings which adorn the solemn repose of the dead ; 
but if he should, by chance, find on the coffin of Albert 
some wreathed moss, some petals of dead violets, they 
will create in his breast more tender emotions, they will 
carry him back with more of the sense of common blood 
and common destiny to the long past years, than any 
carved stones or m ornamented brasses. It is in the affec- 
tions, as in ' the common lot ' of men, that princes and 
beggars are equal. 

" There is something interesting in the fact that, in 
all ages, and almost all countries, flowers have been 
strewn over the dead and laid on their graves, as tokens 
of love that reaches through the darkness. We remem- 
ber to have seen an Egyptian mummy's case opened, in 
which lay the embalmed body of a priestess or princess 
of early days. How many thousand years her body had 
reposed in the Theban mountain, undisturbed by the 
fall of empires or the crushing chariot-wheel of time, 
no one could tell with accuracy. Doubtless she lived 
before the Parthenon was founded, before Home was. 
The monuments of human greatness had been created 



Under the Buffalo Robes. 61 

and had crumbled, the memorials of kings and warriors 
had been decreed by senates, carved by sculptors, ad- 
mired by generations of men, and had gone to dust 
under those chariot-wheels, while the repose of the Egyp- 
tian girl remained calm ; and when it was at length 
broken, we found around her head a wreath of braided 
leaves and blossoms, unbroken even in their delicate 
tendrils. Thus, a token of affection, a simple weaving 
into a wreath of these memorials of human love, had 
outlasted the most elaborate work of man in honour of 
his dead heroes. So the love they typify outlasts all 
earthly measurement of duration. 

" It will hardly be that those wreaths will long con- 
tinue in the atmosphere of an English burial-chamber. 
But they speak of a love that overlooks the changes of 
time — that reaches beyond the confines of life. The 
prince who has now been laid there had many qualities 
that endeared him to those who best knew him, and is 
mourned by a widow who finds little consolation in her 
royalty, and by children who find a mournful pleasure 
in gathering moss and violets at Osborne, to make 
wreaths for his coffin." 

" Now then, gentlemen, if you please, we'll make a 
try/' said the driver, putting his head into the door of 
the hovel ; " sharp, please : just an hour before dark." 

Following his lead, a few minutes brought us to the 
land edge of the ice, usually the shore of the sea. The 
hills loomed high on either side of the narrow channel, 
their summits black with snow clouds. " Come on," 



62 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

cried the driver, as he looked at the ominous sign, 
" Come on quick, gentlemen !" and so saying, he dashed 
among the ice-boulders, which lay for three hundred yards 
between us and the water. It was all very well to cry 
" come on," but to us with smooth shoes it was next to 
impossible. If any one who reads this will upset a basin 
of lump sugar upon the table, and watch the struggles 
of two half-drowned flies upon it, they might then better 
understand our miserable plight. With terrible tumbles 
which hurt seriously, with rolls along the smoothest 
blocks, and bolder creeping over the rougher, we 
managed at length to reach the boat at the edge of the 
ice, which pushed off instantly into the channel. There 
was little need to row, for the tide set us rapidly down, 
and steering alone would bring us diagonally to the 
opposite shore. The grand thing was to avoid, with 
the boat-hooks, the great blocks whirling round past 
us, so placid in appearance, but a squeeze from which 
would have sunk us instantly. It was not a pleasant 
position, for the chop sea lopped us up and down de- 
ridingly, and the snow falling thickly seemed to close a 
sort of doom upon our frail cockle-shell of a bark. It 
came to its crisis when a cry of agony from the little 
barrister, at a heavy lurch, grated on the nerves like 
the sharp risp of a file. 

« Oh i my G— ! Oh ! my G— ! " 

He was grasping the seat with clenched hands, as 
pale as death, and with chattering teeth. It was hor- 
rible to hear him shriek, for at the next lurch he cried 



Under the Buffalo Boles. 63 

" Oh ! save me, save me ! — We are drowned ! — My 
Gr — ! save me, save me ! " 

We tried to soothe him — him who had been so smart, 
and had shown such presence of mind in difficulties on 
shore. The boatmen shouted roughly to him to be 
quiet. But he cried the more helplessly, for his nerves 
were quite unstrung at being thus suddenly thrust upon 
a new danger out of his own element. 

"Save me, my G — ! — save me!" until the echo 
of the hideous yell was mockingly sent back by the side 
of the hill we were rapidly approaching ; and, in a few 
minutes after, with thankful hearts we jumped upon 
the opposite blocks of ice, and scrambled bruisingly 
over them to dry land. 

There we were very soon in a pretty fix. " Follow 
the track up the hill for about half a mile and you '11 
rind the inn," cried the driver. " Come on," said the 
little barrister, all cock-a-hoop again, " or the snow 
will shut out the road." We hardly thought who fol- 
lowed us, but at a turn of the road I saw that the only 
creature near us was the drunken engineer. At that 
very moment, without an instant's notice, this wretched 
man fell backwards in the soft snow with a terrible 
yell, struggling and foaming worse than in the morning. 
Of course we flew to his assistance ; and for half an 
hour laboured to bring him back, but only to a state of 
unparalleled violence. With the greatest difficulty we 
kept him down, and avoided the blows which he struck 
about him. It was a serious business; darkness had 
fallen upon us, and the snow upon the tracks obliterat- 



64 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

ing all traces of the road. Neither of us, in the con- 
fusion, could tell again even the direction to go in. 
We shouted ; there was no answer ; and the pleasant 
conviction of being soon buried and frozen in the snow- 
storm began to loom strongly in the present. 

" Shall I try to find the inn," said my companion, 
" and bring assistance ? " 

" Impossible ! Even if you could do it, you might 
never find us again." 

" Shout ! for heaven's sake, shout ! " 

We shouted to crack our lungs, but not even an echo 
replied. Another half hour passed, the most anxious 
thirty minutes of my life, when, in the distance, the 
bells of a sleigh faintly tingled. How we shouted needs 
no telling ; and at length, joy unspeakable ! we heard 
a faint response. It was a woodman's sleigh ; and very 
much astonished was the man to find us. We had still 
heavy work to do. The poor brute, who was nearly 
frozen on the snow, refused to move, and struck wildly 
at us when we tried to lift him. We made some great 
efforts, and several times had nearly reached the sleigh, 
when he broke away, and threw himself headlong down 
again. The man proposed to drive on and get more 
assistance, but we besought him not to go, on account 
of the heavy drift rapidly increasing. What was to be 
done ? It was impossible to abandon a fellow-creature, 
but yet our own lives were in risk. 

" We must stun him," I said, at length, " to save 
ourselves ; will you consent ? " and I drew out the heavy 
wooden hand-guard of the sleigh, ready to strike. 



Under the Buffalo Boles. 65 

The woodman said " yes," but the barrister would not. 

" D un ! " cried the former, " I '11 choke un." It 

was a bright idea, though less merciful than mine. 

We dashed at him again, and in spite of his kicks 
and bites the woodman secured a black silk handker- 
chief round his throat. A Thuggish twist of his ringers, 
and the wretched man gradually fell back insensible. 
To loosen the grip, place him flat upon the boards of 
the sleigh, and throw ourselves on him to keep him 
down, was the work of an instant. The driver sprung 
up, and lashed his horses. The struggles of the poor 
fellow to get away were dreadful, but we kept him 
down for the five minutes we had to run. At the end 
of that time we reached the inn-door exhausted, torn, 
and bruised. We had saved the life of the miserable 
man, and that was one consolation. Yet what a life 
to save. It was as sad a sight as needs be ; the poor 
wretch, with his purple face, trembling hands, and 
foam- dropping lips, all crouched in the kitchen chimney 
the whole evening, eagerly watching the chance of a 
dram, which it was a mercy to give him. We pro- 
tested against his company any further, as far too 
dangerous. 

Boots it little, indeed, from this point to tell the 
adventures of the next three days through the wide 
white wastes of Cape Breton. How we crouched miser- 
ably beneath the buffaloes, peeping out only in the 
shelter of the woods, where birch, and beech, and pine, 
and hemlock, bowed their snow-laden branches mourn- 
fully as we passed. Or how, at night, we lodged a few 



(j6 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

brief dark hours at shanties, where civility invariably 
atoned for luxuries ; and, as usual, the eternal steak, 
and toast, and. potatoes, and tea, and eggs, were dis- 
pensed to us under the immediate auspices of the 
pleasant landlady. Did I say civility? It was more 
than that ; it amounted always to kindness. On one 
occasion, at a poor place in a little valley on the borders 
of the great lake of the Bras d'Or, where we stopped 
for dinner, in spite of the keen air, my limit to the 
maceration of tough steak, after thirty meals of that 
ilk, had arrived. This the good woman saw, and, beck- 
oning to her husband, said, " Jamie, gae doun and 
crack the ice a wee bit in the burnie ; and see, man, 
if ye canna pu' out a pair o' trout." As luck would 
have it, in half an hour he returned with three splendid 
fish, not one of them less than three-quarters of a pound. 
Not long was it before, split and fried, their deep saffron 
flesh lay invitingly before us. This was, indeed, to eat 
the fresh- water produce in perfection ; and, if only on 
account of the welcome change, those golden mountain 
trout are to be remembered as some of the most delicious 
morsels that ever crossed the lips of a now very weary 
anxious traveller. 

Weary, yes ; yet anxious still more : and the more 
yet, as we traverse the miles towards the end of the jour- 
ney, whether I should catch the steamer at Sydney after 
all, or (horrible to think of) have to make this useless 
journey back again to Halifax. I told this to the little 
barrister, when, to my joy and surprise, he replied — 

" Do you know, I think you could find out all about 



Under the Buffalo Robes. 67 

it soon. There is, I remember, a telegraph station close 
by, and you can ask the question." 

We were then not far from St Peter's Bay, with the 
shores of the Bras d'Or Lake on the other hand ; and 
in less than half an hour, in a little clearing close by 
the edge of a pine wood, we came to a solitary hut. 
Entering, we saw a well-favoured woman, busy at some 
needlework ; a table with a couple of telegraphic ham- 
mers, a clock, some writing materials, and a fire, where 
a pot was, no doubt, cooking a little humble food. 

" Can we send a message to Sydney ? " 

" Certainly/' she replied ; " will you write it there." 

She took the paper and read my earnest request to 
the captain of the ship not to sail till the next evening ; 
and to my surprise, turning round, said — 

" You need not be at the trouble to send this ; the 
Tuscaloosa Avill not have finished coaling till to-morrow 
night, and will sail the next day for Newfoundland." 

"Are you sure?" said I, with a heart leaping to- 
wards the good news. " How could you know it ? " 

" I knew it, because the captain telegraphed this 
morning to the senior naval officer at Halifax, to tell 
him so. This is a check station on the line, and as I 
sit at work I listen to the click, click of the needle, 
and understand all it says." 

Marvellous power and advance of science, never be- 
fore to me more forcibly illustrated. Here was a 
woman at needlework, in a hovel in the backwoods, 
understanding, by a noise which might be mistaken 
for the scratching of a mouse in . the cupboard, the 



68 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

thoughts of men distant hundreds of miles from each 
other. The medium of writing, and therefore of sight, 
cast utterly on one side, and that of the ear alone 
employed. Will the power of man over the material 
world ever go beyond this, annihilating distance by 
touch, feeling, sympathy, taste ? Who would now dare 
to say no ? 

It was the evening of the next day that my hopes 
were realised, by seeing across the frozen harbour of 
Sydney the double funnels of the Tuscaloosa cutting 
sharp against the sky. It was a long drive round the 
frozen harbour, some fifteen miles, I think ; the weather 
was again bitterly cold, and when the sleigh stopped at 
the wharf, we were so benumbed as to be scarcely 
capable of motion, A woman was standing close at 
the door of a decent cottage, and ran out to ask us in. 
Bless her Samaritan heart ! she was not satisfied by 
setting us by the blazing fire, but concocted hot ginger- 
tea forthwith, for our great rejoicing and comfort. 
Would that I had remembered her name, that I might 
the better have recorded her kindness, even though it 
be but another sample of that benevolence which among 
a simple pastoral people had followed us throughout 
the long journey, over the boundless wastes of their 
winter-bound and otherwise inhospitable land. 

Yet I saw it afterwards, when its wintry mantle had 
fallen, and its full bosom, turned lovingly to the sun, 
had revived under the light and warmth of the great 
comforter of nature. The tender tops of the pines 
rivalled then the emerald of Ind ; the cattle wandered 



Under the Buffalo Holes. 69 

over meadows half green, half golden ; the blossoms of 
the plum and cherry, as they fell thickly, deceived the 
eye with the threat of a mimic winter ; while above 
tliem blushed triumphant a thousand apple orchards, 
to restore a belief in the reality of approaching summer. 
It was hard to believe this very Sydney the same place, 
seen now beneath a leaden sky and shrinking cold, and 
then bathed in floods of light and colours manifold. It 
was, indeed, to share the beautiful with Nature itself to 
stand upon the crest of the rise beyond the little coal- 
carrying, shipbuilding town, and watch the road, fringed 
with copses and woods, dotted with cottages, wind 
round the blue harbour stretching far into the distance 
landwards, a sapphire set with a girdle of cinnamon 
stones. Across the harbour opposite there are farms 
and cottages, a church or two, and little woods where 
haply partridges still hide ; while on a little spit of 
sand running shallow into the sea, a flock of curlews 
are very busy, probably with fish spawn, for the seas 
about, we are told, are actually alive with cod, her- 
ring, and mackerel. There are white sails sprinkled 
on the main, a boat with flapping canvas stranded on 
the end of the yellow spit, and the blue smoke of the 
distant town of Sydney proper curling over a woody 
hill, perhaps an island. It is just a bit of water-colour a 
sketcher would love to work in. Ay, more, it appears 
a wondrous place for a poor man to settle in. True, 
now it is little more than a village, but with such a 
harbour, climate, and fisheries ; with such enormous 
resources in coal, to say nothing of other minerals, what 



70 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

will land be worth here one day, when the world in- 
creasing makes greater demands upon its wealth ? 

But we must close this pleasant little slide of sum- 
mer sunshine, and turn back the revolving disc for a 
space to the dreary winter. Comforted by the ginger- 
tea, I struggled on board the Tuscaloosa, thankful, 
indeed, that the misadventure had so happily ended. 
Two mornings afterwards I came on deck early to catch 
the first glimpses of our new home. We were within 
three miles of the coast, and the captain, with a power- 
ful pair of glasses, was searching along an iron ridge of 
bleak lofty cliffs for the narrow entrance to the port of 
St John's. As we approached, the white-capped margin 
rose more boldly from the sea, to the height of some 
six hundred feet, and where it touched the highest, a 
little flag, bright with the rays of the morning red, in- 
dicated that we were already seen. It was a signal also 
for us to steer on, for no break in that great black wall 
was visible until we were close in-shore, right abreast of 
the opening. Then, indeed, they parted for a hundred 
yards or so, to reveal a narrow passage, guarded by 
bristling batteries. Very slowly we steamed through 
the dark portals, looking up with wonder at the lofty 
crags almost perpendicular over the decks. Beyond the 
innermost neck, the passage expanded into an open 
basin, landlocked, hill- surrounded, and entirely hid 
from the sea. This was the harbour of St John's, 
along the edge of which, facing the entrance, were built 
its fishing wharves, and beyond, upon the rising hill, 
the fishing city itself. Crash through the layers of 



Under the Buffalo Robes. 



71 



ice encrusting the still waters of the basin, and which 
formed instantly again behind the wake of the great 
ship, went the ponderous anchor to the bottom ; and a 
wild cheer from the soldiers forward announced the 
journey ended. 




CHAPTER VI. 




THE FIRST LIFTS OF THE FOG— THE HOME 
RESTORED. 

ELL, if before leaving England no person 
could be found who knew anything worth 
mentioning about Newfoundland, really the 
view from the deck of the steamer was hardly 
more enlightening. There was just about as much 
information visible as a bride might obtain of the 
happiness of her future life, from looking at the cake 
on the wedding breakfast-table. The oval basin of the 
harbour, surrounded by grand white hills, but now in 
itself all frozen over, dull-looking, and opaque, save 
where round the ship it was cracked like a broken 
mirror ; and little wreaths of smoke, soiling the shroud 
of the snow-buried city on the slope of the inner hill ; 
were the chief features of what cannot be called a land- 
scape. For the matter of life, activity, or business, 
there was a man, apparently a boatman, on an opposite 
wharf strapping his hands across his shoulders to keep 
himself from absolute petrifaction ; and down away 
where the smoke hung thickest beneath the hill, the 



First Lifts of the Fog — Home Restored. 73 

ear could just catch the hum of human traffic and 
daily existence. " Wish you joy of the prospect," 
snarled the captain, with a grin, as he dived shivering 
beneath the hatch. It was as much as one could do 
not to send a nameless word or two after him. 

A piercingly cold day, without life and bustle to 
keep the blood warm, and the brain from stagnation, 
what a misery it is ! Here we were at the end of our 
voyage, within two hundred yards of the shore, yet 
actually at a dead lock how to get there. No boat 
could cut through the ice, and the pilot said he doubted 
if it were quite safe to walk on ; at any rate, though 
close to his own snug house, he did not go home in 
that fashion, which was a pretty good proof of what he 
thought about it. The sailors forward paced to and 
fro, silent and moody, or shuffled about with the ends 
of stiffened ropes, which refused the best skill of the 
coiler. They were all asleep on shore ; we were all 
sulky on board, cold, and miserable. There was nothing 
to be seen but the white hills, the flat harbour, and the 
hazy sun : that was the position for four wretched hours, 
each minute of which some one cried through his chat- 
tering teeth, " Eugh ! it freezes harder and harder." 

Up and alive again! for all miseries end at last. 
Just as the mid-day gun was fired from the battery 
on the high cliffs above the entrance, a snort of defiance 
issued from the pipes of a little saucy steamer amid the 
wharves and masts a quarter of a mile down the har- 
bour ; and inch by inch we saw her emerging from the 
confusion of ships and spars, to force her way into the 



74 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

open. Before her iron-sheathed bows the brittle ice 
cracked and sprung up into sparkling splinters ; and 
when, after backing and charging here and there, she 
turned fairly towards the Tuscaloosa, it was pretty 
clear that our deliverance was assured. All hands 
came crowding up the hatches ; the cheery bugle 
sounded the "fall in;" the captain ceased to growl; 
while, in the bustle of hoisting up the baggage, the 
thermometer fell, fell, fell, clown to zero, and far beyond, 
yet no one noticed it any longer. 

Yet at first we found the exchange from the black, 
greasy deck of the steamer, to the white, slippery sur- 
face of terra jirma, but a poor one after all. Great 
was the amusement of the big-limbed loafers and apple- 
cheeked damsels collected round the Queen's wharf, to 
see the new soldiers come ashore, when in succession 
each made a jump from the paddle-box, to slip, slide, 
stagger, and then come "heels up" helpless on the 
ground. But it was all good humour and fun, with 
many a hand held out to set the amazed tumblers on 
their legs again. It was up and down, down and up, 
groans from the fallen, shouts from the rabble, all the 
way up the hill that quarter of a mile to the barracks. 
Kot a very cheery prospect even there, — if we except 
deal tables and iron bedsteads, those bare empty rooms, 
looking without fires, oh ! so dreary and comfortless ! 
The iron-bound visage of the stiff, grim barrack-ser- 
jeant, redolent of defects and damages, with his pencil 
and note-book, is not a refreshing sight at best of 
times ; least of all when men are in a hurry to light 



First Lifts of the Fog — Home Bestored. 73 

their fires and make their beds. To examine nail 
holes, or Queen's cracks in the windows then, was 
quite beyond the patience of a man who had no sensa- • 
tion left either in feet or hands ; so telling that worthy 
functionary I would trust all things to his honour, I 
dragged him to look up my own abiding place, where 
a vision of tea and snugness already floated up as a 
mirage of comfort again. 

Whew ! what a change ! the wind, long threatening 
by its sullen moans, as the sun declined, had risen in 
its wrath, bearing along in furious gusts volumes of 
blinding snow. It was really no fancy to suppose the 
white spilikins were striving in vain to escape from the 
torment of the pitiless pursuer ; now in corners against 
walls or buttresses ; now lying humbly on the ground, 
or concealed beneath the bushes ; now flattened against 
doors or windows beseeching shelter; now hiding in 
holes or gutters, in comforters or pockets of travellers, 
or in any possible chink that could be found. ISTo, no ; 
rest for such a handy plaything to the fierce voyager 
from the vast barrens of the North- West there was 
none. Dashed here and there, and everywhere about ; 
heaped up for one second in gigantic cones, and scat- 
tered the next broadcast for roods around ; tossed and 
whirred and hunted ; what a game it was to look at : 
but mind, to look at under shelter, behind double 
windows of a snug room or of a warm conservatory ; 
but no fun to watch it now, and quite enough to do to 
follow the Serjeant's back, as he tacked across the open 
square. 



76 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

At length (I was nearly blind, and only knew by it 
stumbling on him,) he prised himself against a door in 
a wall, and forced it open with a grunt ; when, across 
somewhere else, up a couple of steps, into a dark pass- 
age groping, and a sharp turn to the right, brought us 
to the desired haven. Haven ! home ! it makes me 
smile now when I think of the desolation of the picture 
as it was then. A large dome-like chamber, with a 
vaulted ceiling, dimly lighted by a ration candle, upon 
whose miserable combustion the breezes, entering freely 
by many holes and chinks, were playing the same 
riotous game as outside. My servant, who was tugging 
at the frozen cords of a valise, looked up, just as if to say, 
" I wonder what the master '11 think of this?" I dare 
say he might have hazarded the remark, had not a huge 
puff of black smoke curled out of the fireplace, and 
effectually cut short his sympathy. 

" I can't make head nor tail of this here stove, sir ; 
it 's awful." 

It was, as we afterwards learnt, one of those charming 
Yankee contrivances for giving heat at the expense of 
every other comfort, called a " Franklin," very common 
in former days in the western hemisphere. Projecting 
a long way into the room by a connecting pipe to the 
flue, the heat by it circulated through the apartment 
was not to be doubted ; but the smell of the sulphur 
and heated iron, together with the everlasting watch 
required, we soon found to be quite beyond endurance. 
When the blower was off, out went the fire in ten 
minutes. En revanche with the blower on, the roar of 



First Lifts of the Fog — Home Restored. 77 

the furnace inside exhausted our fuel at a terrible 
rate. 

I thought my servant a fool at first, and set to work to 
manage the concern myself ; but as soon as I had used 
up a day's allowance of coal in less than an hour, and 
made myself as black as a parboiled nigger, I acknow- 
ledged (to myself) that we were both sailing in the 
same boat. 

At last he went to his tea in the barrack-room, and I 
sat down in the dark vault to watch the stove. Amid 
so much discomfort this was something to do at any 
rate ; and further, while perplexed at the concern, I 
popped the blower on and off with alternate fits of 
freezing and thawing ; with the mutton fat in my hand 
I sought out all the principal chinks around the room, 
and plugged out the snow and wind with dirty linen 
and paper. There was comfort too in the thought of 
the man returning with tea, — and in speculation as to 
the materials he could raise in such a wilderness for so 
civilised a meal ; and I reflected how best I should 
manage to toast a sausage or a herring, my ideas as to 
the resources of the land being by no means exalted. 
Then I dragged the bed close to che stove, and, crouch- 
ing close down, consoled myself with the thoughts that 
even this was a palace to a tent in the Arctic regions, 
in which, perhaps, many a better man was perishing at 
the moment. Then I wondered how the other fellows 
were rubbing on, and whether the winter was all like 
this in Newfoundland, and how many people were 
snowed up and starved annually. Then came softer 



78 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

thoughts of home, and — and — I suppose, at last, I 
must have dropped asleep. 

At any rate, I only remember my name suddenly 
called out, and a stamping of heavy feet at the door. 
I could barely distinguish them ; a huge mass, like half 
a dozen Newfoundland dogs rolled into one, shaking 
clouds of snow from its exterior. Beneath an otter- 
skin cap shone a pair of bright eyes enveloped in a 
mass of whiskers and beard, profusely # sprinkled with 
sleet and snow. 

" H'm !" said the figure, advancing ; " how are you ? 
don't you know me ?" 

The voice struck across the memory as that of an 
old friend, though its echo was but faint at first. 

" Eh ! don't you remember Wolfe at ' The Shop f ' I 
remember you very well. I command the Incidentals 
here now. I missed you on landing, and only just 
found out where you were." 

Kemember him ! of course I did. Fellows who were 
cadets at " The Shop" never forget each other. But 
considering that Wolfe then was a thin slip of a smooth- 
faced youngster, it was hardly to be wondered that a 
recognition of this matured Polar bear, under the in- 
fluence of a solitary government dip, did not imme- 
diately ensue. 

But a leap of twenty years is nothing to old school- 
fellows. In less than ten minutes Wolfe knew the out- 
line of my history since we parted, and I knew his. 
By this time the blower, which I had taken off to do 
due honour to his presence, required replacing. The 



First L ifts of the Fog — Home Restored. 79 

flame of the candle flew at right-angles to the zenith, 
and the flap of the ragged paper on the walls reminded 
one of linen hung out to dry. 

" H'ni ! " said my friend, " these quarters are not in 
very good order, I see." 

" Confound you ! " thought I to myself; " and whose 
fault is that ? " 

" It 's the same all through the place," he continued, 
deprecating any remark ; " I should be most happy to 
repair, but the money 's the thing. They — will — not — 
give — the — money." 

" Then why do they send us to do duty abroad ? " 

"Ah! that's not my business. But all I know is, 
of late years they have screwed and tightened things 
down in the Colonies to the very last turn. They seem 
to think new barracks will never be wanted. We have 
been ' patching up ' and ' rubbing on ' here for sixty 
years ; and I should never be surprised to get an order 
cutting us down still lower. The fact is, they are afraid 
to ask Parliament for money for the Colonies/' 

" Am I to live here in this state then— this dog- 
hole?" 

" H'm ! well, no ; not exactly. 1 11 see what money 
is left in the estimate — precious little I know. How- 
ever, come over to my den, and dine with me, and we '11 
talk over that another time." 

Leaving a line in pencil for my servant, and reck- 
lessly throwing on half a day's coal, we groped our 
way through the passage into the open air. Heads 
down, ram-fashion, we butted against the storm, — I 



80 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

following his figure, dimly seen through the chilling 
drift. His garden gate, about three hundred yards 
away, we reached sadly out of breath in about twenty 
minutes, and then expended several more in forcing it 
back against the fast-increasing pile of snow, happily 
still soft and yielding. The gale, too, fought stoutly 
at his house-door, and fain would enter with us. That 
last victory secured, the inner door opened on a bright 
vision ot, to me, a well-frozen voyager, Paradise re- 
gained. 

A pleasant, roomy hall, brightly lighted, with a stair- 
case running spirally round one side to meet a gallery 
above, along which, and up and down the stairs, little 
children were chasing each other, with merry laughter. 
White muslin dresses, bare necks, and hyacinths in 
blossom, with such an atmosphere outside ! — it was 
truly bewildering ; when, to crown it all, just then a 
vision passed of an Anglo-Saxon, golden-haired lassie, 
with the neatest little cap, and cherry-ribbons to match, 
who tripped across the hall with a tray, and completed 
a picture which said plainly to the heart — " English 
home ! English home ! " 

A rapid whisking with a rush brush, scattering the 
layers of snow and sleet, made us presentable in the 
fragrant room to which Cherry-ribbons pointed. I had 
fancied myself pretty well cognisant of barracks all 
over the world, and hitherto believed that the regula- 
tion fixings, chimney-pieces, paperings, and fireplaces, 
were pretty much of one pattern everywhere. There 
is an exception, no doubt, to all rules ; and here I found 



First Lifts of the Fog — Home Restored. 81 

it to this one amid a flood of light from gasaliers, re- 
flected from varnished walls of creamy whiteness, upon 
which the flickering shadows, caused by a blazing fire, 
chased each other in merry, mysterious mazes. Pic- 
tures, flowers in full blossom, trickety tables, and stands 
in odd corners, spangled with little goblets and knick- 
nacks reflecting the dancing light in a multitude of 
colours, helped to fill in the picture of a pleasant con- 
trast for the eyes of a man who had lived with the 
rudest externals of the world for many past days. 

" Can this possibly be Newfoundland ? " was my 
venturous remark on making the acquaintance of my 
fair hostess, and of several of her friends who were 
toasting themselves before the fire. 

"Why, what did you expect? I suppose, like us, 
you could hear nothing of it in England, and thought 
it was all fish and fog ! " 

" Just what they said, with ice and wind into the 
bargain. And here there are heliotropes and hyacinths 
in blossom, and ladies with low necks in January ! " 

" Besides," I could not help remarking, as I observed 
Mrs Wolfe's eye taking a complacent survey of her 
pretty room, " this is quite a different kind of barrack 
to anything I remember seeing before." 

"Oh! " she replied, with just a little stiffening of the 
head and neck, " this is not a barrack ; this is the 
quarters of the Koyal Incidentals — his official residence ! 
which — is— quite — a — different — thing." 

" No doubt of it ! " I added, meekly ; " I only wish 
we were all Koyal Incidentals." 



82 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

" Yes, indeed," chimed in another lady, with a 
merry laugh ; " and I should have my room cured of 
smoking ! " 

" And I," said her neighbour, " would have a sweet, 
little greenhouse built. Oh 1 I do so love flowers ! " 

"I'm sure I should like a lovely white and gold 
paper, too," added the third lady of our little party. 

" Dear me ! M cried the hostess, a little bewildered by 
the variety of the attack, " I'm certain it's not Captain 
Wolfe's fault about the smoke ; he 's always trying to 
doctor those dreadful chimneys." 

" I think I could cure 'them," replied her fair per- 
secutor. " I 'd put in a lovely American grate, like this 
one;" and her little foot, in its black satin case, pointed 
slyly to the glowing furnace before us. 

" Oh, dear ! but you know it would be so expensive 
to put these grates in quarters, so Captain Wolfe says. 
This, 3 7 ou know, my dear, is a residence for the Koyal 
Incidentals." 

li And — quite — a — different — thing," we all cried, in 
jocular chorus. 

" And pray, may I ask, where does the commandant 
of the garrison live ? Has he a residence ? " 

" Oh, no ! He lives in quarters in the barracks like 
the rest. I think," she continued, with another com- 
placent glance at her domain, " the whole of his rooms 
would go into this ; and he 's a dreadful grumbler about 
the smoke, too ! " 

"Well! but he's a full colonel, and at Waterloo 
before Wolfe or I was born ! I wonder he does not 



First Lifts of the Fog — Home Restored. 83 

try and turn you out of this little palace, and take it 
himself ! " 

"Turn us out! — turn us out! the residence of the 
Royal Incidentals ! " gaspedjthe good lady, — " out of this 
lovely house, with our farm, and garden, and fields, and 
dairy " 

" H'm, my dear ! " said Wolfe, with a little cough, as 
he entered the room — " H'm, my dear ! are we going to 
dine to-day ? Twenty minutes late." 

Another American stove half-blinded the eyes as the 
folding-doors were at this moment opened by Cherry- 
ribbons, and a goodly table laden with substantial 
blessings brought to view. Our hostess caught my 
expression as I wandered from the brilliant chandelier 
to the brighter hearth, thence to the crimson curtains 
festooned upon the walls. Nor did I fail to catch hers, 
and understand by its arch smile how she intended to 
imply " Don't you, my poor fellow, wish you belonged 
to the Royal Incidentals ? " 

Perhaps so ; but never mind that now, for she gave 
us a capital dinner, which, since I had been assured 
there was nothing to be found eatable in Newfoundland 
but codfish, I may as well enter into a little fully. 
Palestine soup, of first-rate quality, heralded the repast ; 
and greatly did I wonder in my heart as to where the 
rich cream and Jerusalem artichokes, which clearly 
formed a main part of its ingredients, came from. I 
wondered still more to perceive there was actually no 
fish to follow. But we had a pair of roasted fowls, 
plump and tender — taken, as Wolfe explained, out of 



84 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

a box where, with many others, they had lain half- 
frozen for weeks. A Bath chop, smoked to a flavour 
and quality which left no reasonable doubt of its being 
home-cured, aided the discussion of the poultry. Then 
followed a boiled leg of mutton, with French beans 
preserved in salt, nearly as good as if just picked out 
of the garden : mashed potatoes and a grouse-pie, with 
kidneys and mushrooms. Ye gods ! what a perfume 
rose to the nostrils of a hungry man when the lid of 
that pie was lifted ! Talk of codfish, boiled or salted ! 
Why, it was a dilemma how to dine, and that was the 
truth ; a dilemma, moreover, rapidly increasing as we 
proceeded. For the Gordian knot of the first course was 
cut only to be at once reravelled with gooseberry-tart 
and clotted cream — actually clotted cream, as good as 
Devonshire ever boasted of — fig-pudding, jellies, and 
tipsy-cake. The interlude of a Stilton, accompanied 
by the crispest of celery, is hardly worth recording, 
compared to my surprise at the dessert which followed. 
A green Spanish melon, a pine from Porto Kico, a dish 
of the incomparable Pomme-Grris apples from Montreal, 
oranges from Havannah, olives, figs, and crackers ! 
I ventured, after the first glass of port, to observe — 

" I think there is no fear of an everlasting surfeit of 
salt-cod, as I heard of in England." 

" Oh ! so did we," rose in a general chorus round the 
table ; " we all heard there was nothing else, in winter 
at any rate/' 

" But it's all off our farm, every bit of the dinner," 
said Mrs Wolfe, exultingly. 



First Lifts of the Fog — Home Restored. 85 

" What ! has the Royal Incidental residence got a 
farm, too ? " 

;> I should think so, indeed ! the Incidentals " 

" H'm ! my dear ! " cried Wolfe — " eh ? Shall I ring 
and see if the fire in the next room wants stirring ? 
Xot a farm/'' he continued, turning to me, " a mere 
paddock — a little field — nothing worth mentioning." 

" And the garden, Willy, dear ! " cried the lady, who 
understood no such mysteries or depreciations of her 
glory ; :: and the poultry-yard, and the sheep-pens, and 
the stables, and the outhouses, and the kennels, — do you 
call that nothing ? The Royal Inci " 

11 My dear — h'm ! — that fire will be out. Oh! surely 
you are not going yet ? " So the folding -doors smoothly 
closed upon the ample crinolines, and Wolfe said, with 
a smile — 

" Now, draw your chairs cltfse to the fire, and we can 
make ourselves comfortable. Hark ! how it blows still ! " 

" Upon my word, you seem to have fallen on very 
snug quarters here, to say the least of it." 

; ' Oh ! my dear fellow ! I admit, so-so — very comfort- 
able. I admit it — wife's geese are all swans, that 's the 
truth of it ; but it 's a good quarter, a capital quarter 
( >n the whole, and very few of the fellows in England 
know anything about." 

11 No botheration, I suppose, or worry — official, I 
mean ? " 

" Very little ; and above all things, a healthy climate. 
So with what my wife calls a little farm, h'm ! (which 
makes me smile), we rub on well enough." 






86 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

" Yes," he continued, giving his moustache a rumin- 
ating turn, " there 's another blessing for which we 
cannot be too grateful." 

" No General Officer in command, eh ? " 

" You've hit it ; and a telegraphic message to Hali- 
fax and back costs thirty-six shillings. What a com- 
fort ! Why, at one of our big camps, life was not worth 
having, literally not — worth — having. Four mails, be- 
sides expresses without end. From sixty to one hun- 
dred official letters every morning, and telegraphs every 
quarter of an hour. Orders and counter-orders without 
end, with litter and confusion everywhere. The office 
floor was carpeted each morning with envelopes two 
inches thick. A pretty life of it, and neither thanks 
nor extra pay, though the work was extra in every way. 
Oh ! it 's a delightful service at a large military station 
at home, with a telegraph attached to it ! Thank 
heaven, the mail only arrives here once a month in 
winter, and once a fortnight in summer. The women 
complain of it, so do the merchants ; but it 's quite 
enough for me. Help yourself." 

" Well, these are blessings in this out of the way 
place to make up for other deficiencies. It certainly 
is a grand thing to be five hundred miles from the 
general and his staff." 

So we filled our glasses, and laughed over many old 
stories of younger days, dug up out of memory's retro- 
spect of the old " shop " the first time for twenty years. 
Coffee came, was discussed, and though we heard the 
buzz of the drawing-room through the folding-doors, we 



First Lifts of the Fog — Home Restored. 87 

still sat to conjure up the almost sacred scenes of 
schoolboy-days. It was a long vista to travel down 
before we arrived at Newfoundland. But as we rose at 
the second summons, conveyed through Cherry-ribbons, 
" That tea was growing cold," Wolfe said — 

"Now, don't be afraid; you may find this place a 
little heavy at first, on account of the season, but you 
will like it very well by and by. The people are kind 
and social, and the summer very pleasant. Fishing 
good, shooting first-rate, climate healthy, living good, 
and not too dear ; take it all in all, it 's a capital 
quarter, and you 11 see if I 'm not right." 

His wife confirmed all he said over a cup of tea, all 
the better for standing under the " cosy," as a thick 
crimson nightcap made to envelop the teapot in these 
parts is called. Yet we were well scolded for sitting 
so long, as Mrs Wolfe said — 

" Over your wicked days, I 'm sure, before you be- 
came good, steady, married men." 

" Oh ! " we replied, " we assure you, we have been 
listening quite meekly to the praises of the Eoyal 
Incidentals." 

11 Then," said she, laughing, " I forgive you. They 
cannot be praised too much. They are the cream of 
the service, I think." 

" And we poor fellows, then, what are we ? the dregs, 
or skim-milk, or what ? " 

" Oh ! I don't say you are anything. All I know is, 
they are the cream of the service to me. Come, I 've 
another cup for you." 



88 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

Well, she had a right to her opinion, and a good 
opinion it was in the bargain. She had drawn a prize 
in life's lottery, and had the good sense to know it. 
Such honest, true-hearted pride was worthy of all re- 
spect. Thank God, when good women feel such pride, 
from the Queen on her throne to the humblest fisher's 
wife in the wide realms of England ; to whom might 
be offered vainly all the estates and riches of the world 
if, without husband and child, they were to be held 
and possessed. 

Eleven sounded on the pendule. How quickly the 
time had fled amid the harmony of pleasant voices, 
music, and rustling silk. " Well," said my friend's 
wife, as we shook hands, "I am glad you have found 
out that Newfoundland is not such a barbarous place 
after all. I'm sure you will like it when you put 
matters a little straight." Thought I to myself, in 
milder weather, perhaps, but certainly not now ; for 
the plunge from the bright porch into the dark, snow- 
driven night was anything but a joke. The wind 
howled avengefully, the sleet slapped bitterly in the 
face, and the drifts caught me artfully in their deep, 
soft traps. There were but three hundred yards to go, 
along a straight road, but that was the work of half 
an hour. It was a series of clinging to the fence, with 
half frozen hands, pitching headlong into the drift, or 
pausing to listen for the chance of a guiding sound. It 
came at last, just as I reflected on the chances of being 
found, like Lot's wife, at break of day. A picket of 
soldiers, dragging a drunken comrade by the heels, 



First Lifts of the Fog — Home Restored. 89 

came roaring round the corner. Stumbling after them, 
I scrambled through the gates, and groped a way into 
my den.- The stove was all but out, and the place so 
thick with smoke that one might have cut it with a 
knife. What matter ? by this time I was hardened 
and desperate, and had, moreover, found out, pleasantly 
enough I admit, that I did not belong to the " cream 
of the service." I was soon well under the pile of 
cloaks spread upon my camp bed, and glad to be there. 
The words of the great commandment rose before my 
conscience, and thinking of my own unbounded blessings, 
I fell asleep. 

Sometimes remembering that miserable night, and 
many others which followed while that dirty Govern- 
ment hole remained as I found it, I would look round 
with a smile at the contrast it now presents. After 
hammering at the study door of my good friend's official 
conscience, little by little, inch by inch, as the means 
came to his hand, he was able to mend matters up. 
A good grate, a clean paper, a little paint, a stopping 
up of rat holes here and there, created a marvellous 
change for the better. True, we have never aspired to 
an " official residence," or to a farm, or paddock, or 
cows, conservatories, gas, white and gold paper, or such 
other choice luxuries. These are left, no doubt quite 
jjroperly, to the " cream of the service." At any rate 
so think the fair ladies who represent that favoured 
corps in all quarters of the world. Nevertheless, we 
drink our tea with plain milk very happily. The 
bird sings in the corner, the plants in the window 



90 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

are in full blossom, and old Tom, rescued from the 
drain, and sent on by special express in the mail-boat, 
purrs before the brightest of fires. Best of all, a little 
woman again chats and laughs over her work, every note 
of her cheerful voice seeming to whisper, in a gentle 
refrain, " Home is home, even amid ice and snow and 
every gloom ; all is bright within, and, God be praised, 
home is home ! " 








CHAPTER VII. 



CREDIT AND DISCREDIT. 




SPLENDID day, sir," cried my man, stamp- 
ing the snow off his boots, as he entered 
about eight o'clock next morning. " A 
splendid day, sir, as ever you saw. You 'd 
hardly know the place again." 
" Cold ? " 

" Froze up, sir, as hard as a gravestone ; but there 
ain't any wind." 

Up I jumped to realise these blessings, and found 
them not exaggerated. Mother Earth was bedecked 
with a garment of the purest white, so dazzling as to 
force weak mortal eyes to turn for peace to the soft 
cerulean blue above. Not a breath of wind, nor a 
sound but of the distant sleigh-bells, and the crisp, 
musical crackling of the blanket beneath the feet — a 
proof that it was freezing sharply. So it continued — a 
real Canadian day, as should not be lost without a 
ramble. Two hundred yards away, outside the gates, 
Wolfe was standing with his dogs, yet I could fancy he 
was close to my side when he shouted — 



92 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

" Will you come for a walk through the town ? " 
Off we went, slipping, sliding, tumbling down the 
glacis. The dogs, two large handsome setters, in mag- 
nificent condition after the shooting-season, came bound- 
ing after, thoroughly enjoying the sport the heavy fall 
of snow afforded them: now buried together in their 
wild play in a drift, now casting up a volume of mimic 
spray, now scratching it away in eager rivalry for a bone 
snuffed beneath the surface. It was "stand clear,"' as 
the noble brutes came bounding after us at Wolfe's 
shrill whistle. Turn round and fend them off with a 
friendly guard, or up you go, — cut off your feet in a 
twinkling, they miles ahead again before one had time 
to protest, either with tongue or stick. 

So on we went, dogs and friends together, past one or 
two minor streets, straight in their line, yet poor in their 
build ; and down a steep, rocky descent, which, although 
in the very centre of a large town, was still untouched 
by the hand of man. It led us straight into the main 
avenue of St John's, — Water Street, — which, formerly 
built of wood, was destroyed in a terrible conflagration 
in 1846. A grand opportunity for rebuilding a fine 
street, which certainly, in any other community, would 
have been seized with avidity, was then sadly lost. 
Stores and houses of all sorts, according to the purse or 
fancy of the proprietor, were run up on the alignment of 
the harbour; the whole, in its snakelike twisting, for 
nearly a mile and a half long, presenting, to the eye of 
the stranger, a commonplace, yet substantial appearance. 
Behind the buildings, on the water side of the street, 



Credit and Discredit. 93 

project the wharves for the ships and stores ; and, while 
the lower basements of the houses are appropriated to 
the retail-shops (as good as one may meet in any third- 
rate town in England), the merchants live above: for 
the business of the merchant here combines both the 
wholesale and retail styles. He deals in thousands in 
one minute with his right hand, and will sell you in the 
next a packet of pins with the other. Moreover, his 
retail is not confined to pins alone, — that is to say, one 
article of trade, or even to a dozen or a thousand. His 
wide stores contain an omnium gatherum of most of the 
necessaries and rubbish of civilised life. The same sys- 
tem, it is true, prevails generally in most of our colonies, 
but not to the extent it has hitherto done here. Where 
else is there (with the exception of Taylor's, in Corfu, 
of everlasting memory) any shop where one might pur- 
chase a crape-bonnet, a ham, a chimney-pot, a wedding- 
ring, and a bottle of Eadway's Keady Belief? This, 
however, is more correct of the big stores on the south 
or aristocratic side of the crooked street. In justice to 
the proprietors of those on the opposite face, it is but 
fair to say that apparently the whole of the shops there, 
with scarcely an exception, dispose of but six articles — 
old crockery, apples, lucifers, herrings, stale buns, and 
rum ; and the greatest of these is rum. Never has it 
appeared before what became of those old-fashioned 
chimney-ornaments, in outrageous gilded china, of those 
bronzed teapots and jugs, the admiration of a past gene- 
ration at home. Here they all were, enjoying the wor- 
ship of the youth of another race. It was really quite 



94 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

startling the first glimpse of that big ehina long-eared 
spaniel, with a snub nose, the type of so many thousands 
of his fragile race, adorning the windows of every shop 
all down the length of the north side of Water Street. 
It was to take a great leap back of thirty years at least, 
and to pass a gentle hand across a poll but thinly-sown 
now, ere the rusty links of a remembrance of a nursery- 
acquaintance with him were tightly snapped together. 

So it became clear, as we passed along to the river 
head, at the top of the harbour, that every shop on one 
side of the street was the emporium of the merchant 
dealing in all the commodities here in demand, and 
every shop on the other was, speaking generally, a grog- 
shop. A stranger to the style of business might pass 
along with the commonplace reflection that, under such 
circumstances, the principles of trade, on the one hand, 
were conducted still in a rude and primitive style; and, 
on the other, that the labours of the disciples of Father 
Mathew had not been very successful in the community. 
He would be right : but there would be yet much more 
to be learnt, leading at last to the conclusion, that the 
gambling and drinking shops, lying contiguous and 
cheek-by-jowi, were meet and well-placed companions. 
The merchant is really no merchant here, — that is, no 
fair speculator, under the usual and proper understand- 
ing of that term in trade ; he is simply a great com- 
mercial gambler. The planter or middleman imitates 
his superior on a smaller scale ; and the ignorant fisher- 
man follows suit as a matter of course. This system of 
trade, between the supplier and supplied, began in the 



Credit and Discredit. 95 

first days of the settlement as a fishing-colony, when 
goods, only to be procured from a few rich merchants at 
the summer-stations, were necessarily taken in advance 
by the fishermen; and, unhappily, the same plan of 
barter still exists, to the detriment of the morality and 
prosperity of the community. In short, the workman 
eats his bread before it is earned by the sweat of his 
brow ; and it is not difficult to arrive at the result of 
such a plan. The merchant, with his stores full of pro- 
visions, clothing, fishing-gear, and household goods, like 
a spider in his parlour, awaits the approach of the hungry 
fisherman, his legitimate fly. In the spring, before the 
seal-fishery commences, — in May, when the cod are 
coming in, — in November — no matter whether the season 
has been favourable or not — the fisherman must have 
supplies for his family ; his children must be fed. The 
merchant, once embarked in such a business, has no 
choice but to continue, or lose all. He must, therefore, 
charge awful profits, to remunerate himself against such 
an awful risk. Accordingly, while he sells a barrel of 
flour to the cash-customer (when he gets one) for 30s., 
he books it to the fisherman (who may or may not pay 
him) for £3, 10s. ; a pair of boots worth, perhaps, 17s., 
are put down £2. 5s. ; a gridiron, worth 2s. 6d., is noted 
at 9s. ; a Jersey, 7s. 6d., at 25s., and so on. This is but 
a moderate estimate of this iniquitous barter ; it being 
by no means an uncommon thing, when the risk is 
greater, to book the same barrel of flour at £6, and all 
other things at a thousand per cent, in proportion. 
Iniquitous barter, be it well understood, on both sides ; 



96 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

and let us see how it acts. The fisherman, in the 
majority of cases, little he cares on the matter. The 
system descended to him from his fathers ; they rubbed on 
and lived under it, and so will he. So he travels home 
with his goods, eats and rejoices, caring nothing for the 
evil day of reckoning, which comes when the fishing is 
over : the fish delivered at so much on one side of the 
ledger, and the outrageous credit he has taken balanced 
on the other. Karely, indeed, is there a residue in his 
favour, but enough still owing to bring him back to the 
spider's parlour again, and, in most cases, keep him in 
the meshes all his life. The consequences to the man 
and his family are easily understood. Economy, order, 
cleanliness, education, prosperity, are practically to them 
unknown. As he gains his money in a chance-like, 
gambling fashion, so he spends it recklessly, without a 
thought for the morrow. Let us look at the results 
which bad fisheries, for a few consecutive years, engen- 
dered. Latterly, no less than one-third of the whole 
revenue of the colony has been spent in pauper-relief, 
failing which a great part of the labouring population 
would have perished. And, traced back to the origin 
of this outlay, this enormous sum was simply a tax or 
penalty, paid by the whole public, on the pernicious 
system adopted by the merchants in their business 
transactions. 

There is yet a worse evil than this. The fisherman 
looks round, and sees in the ocean a great gambling- 
pool, from which he may, perhaps, in some very favour- 
able season, without great trouble, draw a famous lot- 



Credit and Discredit. 97 

teiy- ticket. On the other side, he sees round his door 
abundance of land, which, with toil, will yield him sus- 
tenance, in turnips, potatoes, hay, barley, fodder, and 
garden-stuff. But is it in poor, ignorant, human nature 
to labour and sweat, when — oh ! so easily — all its wants 
can be supplied without the toil? — when the simple 
credit at the merchant's enables all to eat to- day, and 
to pay when Providence is pleased to send the fish ? 
So the patient earth is left, year after year, untouched ; 
and the greasy fisherman, leaning idle, in the precious 
spring-time, against the merchant's store in Water 
Street, hugs himself with the cherished idea, that his 
ticket this year in the great fish-lottery will surely turn 
up a tremendous prize. Thus slow and sure, against 
chance and luck, have little hope of winning. But it 
must be understood that this is a way of existence 
eminently suited to the Irish character, luxuriantly de- 
veloping the richest traits of that unstrung nationality, 
which forms the majority in this most ancient, yet still 
untilled, offshoot of the British crown. 

There is something to be said on the other side of a 
question involving such lamentable consequences to the 
welfare of a people. There is some truth in asserting that 
the merchant of the present day cannot help the mischief ; 
that he does his best with the disastrous legacy of his 
forefathers ; that he could not begin a new and healthy 
system without the concurrence of all his compeers, in- 
volving the risk of immediate collapse to many of them. 
He is obliged to charge the fisherman exorbitantly for 
his credit, for the risk is tremendous — out of all pro- 



98 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

portion to anything else known in trade — not only on 
account of bad seasons, but also from the bad faith of 
the men to whom he has given supplies, year after year, 
with scarcely any return, yet waiting, hoping, praying, 
believing in an eventual turn of luck. Yes, luck I — the 
whole business of the colony is absolutely concentrated 
in that word. At last the prospect of a brimming year 
arrives, and all looks hopeful. The merchant hears 
great accounts of the catch and of the quality of the 
fish; indeed he sees, here and there, his neighbours' 
wharves begin to groan with ocean-fruit. He begins to 
hug himself with the belief that, at last, his books are 
not only to be balanced, but that large profits will enable 
him to realise the dearest wish of his heart — a country- 
house near Liverpool or Greenock. But, alack-the-day 1 
to his intense disgust, many of the fishermen begin to 
come to his office with long faces and tales of had luck ; 
to be turned away with threats and curses, of little avail, 
indeed, for he understands only too well the lying lips 
the ill-taught fellows open. How is the enigma to be ex- 
plained? for fish in abundance there is, without a shadow 
of doubt. It is all sold, as soon as caught, for cash down, 
to other parties. The fisherman, on the Banks, with his 
boat loaded to the brim with fish day after day, makes 
a simple reflection, that, if he sends up too much cf his 
labour to the merchant, it will just be wiping off old 
scores, and be paying for bread eaten long ago. So, in 
the gray of the morning, it happens that a fore-and-aft 
schooner comes booming along, the skipper of which, 
backing her sails among the little crafts, soon fills up 



Credit and Discredit. 99 

his venture, at a moderate expense, when away he 
bowls to Halifax or Boston, to join the Yankee or 
blue-nosed cuckoo-traders in growing fat over the 
helpless sparrows of Newfoundland. Up go the iron 
shutters before the warehouse doors and windows ; and 
one hears, every now and then, of £20,000 worth of 
book-debts sold by auction, in the Commercial Kooms, 
for £20, and at another, of £15,600 for a five-pound 
note ! 

The signs of these things are about us and around us 
as we walk on. The success or failure of mercantile 
speculations cannot be altogether hid behind the baize- 
doors of the counting-house. The prosperity or poverty 
of a British city must be, at any rate, stamped plainly 
on its face ; for British merchants, when fortune smiles, 
button not up their pockets ; and, from within, their 
good-will, loyalty, pride if you please, but honest pride 
withal, pour forth large blessings on all around. In 
their own homes of plenty they pluck freely of the fruit 
and flowers, and scatter them generously abroad. Yet, 
could any stranger, knowing this, traverse this great 
commercial city from one end to the other, and not 
draw the conclusion that something at the root of its 
business was wrong and rotten, — some trust, which had 
failed to establish itself between man and man, — a want 
of faith between employer and employed ? He will be 
told, on the one hand, that, in proportion to its inhabit- 
ants, a larger business is done here than at any other 
colonial city ; and he will look about, on the strength 
of this, and see not a trace of that pride to which the 



100 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

honest citizens of the great marts of earth point with 
well-founded satisfaction. 

Wolfe and I, talking of these fishy things, slid and 
slipped and stumbled adown the whole length of "Water 
Street ; past the wharves and ships ; past the bridge of 
boats which spans the neck of the harbour, past another 
mile or so of straggling houses in the suburb, before we 
turned our backs to the bitter westerly wind. And yet, 
in all this, the principal part of St John's, aligning the 
whole length of the bright, hill-surrounded harbour, not a 
trace, not a sign, of a public building, or of a monument, 
or ornamental fountain, or anything to denote a love 
of country, or patriotism, or good-feeling to one's fellow- 
men, could be noted. From this point we struggled 
homewards through the snow, by narrower streets lead- 
ing to the upper parts of the city; past the Eoman 
Catholic cathedral, so proudly and admirably perched 
on the highest crest, to command the harbour, the Nar- 
rows, and many miles of inland country round ; beneath 
the statue of the Baptist, at its entrance, with the scallop 
in his hand, so truly emblematic of the everlasting cry 
of the Chief Fisherman — "shell out, shell out;" and so 
on, past the big stone Government House, and past the 
whole outskirts of the other side, towards the east and 
north. It was ever the same. The houses were prin- 
cipally wooden erections, straight up and down in pat- 
tern, without a particle of superfluity or ornament, and 
mostly mean of their kind, as the residences of British 
merchants. But few of them had, upon the margin of 
the pretty lakes which fringe the city, country-boxes for 



, Credit and Discredit. 101 

the summer, preferring the dirt and dust and cod-oily 
smells of the fishy town ; not for economy or meanness, 
but in the belief that, in the gambling nature of their 
business, each year would turn up the ace of trumps, 
and prove the last of exile. 

No athenseuin, or rink, or library ; no town-hall or 
museum ; no greenhouses, conservatories, or parks. 
Nothing, absolutely nothing to be seen but the bare, 
cold, unappealing necessities of life. 

The sun was just setting as we concluded our first 
walk round St John's, at Bakehouse Corner, opposite 
the little fort ; a convenient spot, where roads meet and 
converge, and where the folks lounge about and chat. 

"Wait half-a-minute," said Wolfe; " I hear the 
farmers going home. It 's worth while to see the style 
of driving here." 

In less time than he named, merry bells and loud 
voices were heard rapidly turning the corner at the 
foot of the glacis. On they came in succession, five or 
six sleighs, or lumbering catamarans. The occupants, 
drivers included, were lying full stretch across the bars, 
backs to the horses, shouting, laughing, or swearing 
jocosely at one another, as the mood of the instant took 
them. It was a procession of bacchanalians, foolish, 
half-screwed, yet intending no harm or mischief. The 
leading catamaran was going at a heavy trot, right in 
the centre of the track, the reins dragging through the 
snow by the side, and the owner flat across the bottom 
of the concern, face up, and most likely asleep ; while his 
legs, perched across a flour barrel, hitched upwards like 






102 Lost Amid the Fogs. * 

a pair of pistons at every forward jerk of the horse. Not 
one of them was watching the road, yet they followed 
the leader in the narrow track as skilfully as a London 
cabman could have done. On they went — on, on — past 
the crest of the hill down to the little bridge spanning 
the river at the head of the lake, till we could see them 
no longer, or hear the music of the bells discordantly 
mingled with the half-drunken human laughter. 

" Well," said my friend, " what do you think of 
that?" 

" Think of it ? Why, that there will be a frightful 
accident before these fellows reach home. Look at the 
leader ! no one guides him ! suppose he drowns the 
whole lot of them ? " 

" No fear ; that horse is going to a farm six or seven 
miles across Windsor Lake, and he knows every foot 
of the road ; and besides that, his master is dead drunk. 
He'll carry him home quite safe, and the wife will 
lift her old man off the sleigh, and put him to bed. 
Valuable horse that, eh ? " 

" What brings all these fellows into town at this 
season, through all this snow ? " 

" Why, these are some of the best in the country, 
half -fisher men, half-farmers. They come in for sup- 
plies for their families, mostly flour, tea, and molasses. 
You may thus see the advantage of the arrangement 
of our principal street at a glance ; the flour barrels 
from the merchant's stores on one side, and the rum 
from the grog-shops on the other." 

"Great facility for business, certainly; but what 



Credit and Discredit. 103 

will happen to people or sleighs meeting that drunken 
lot ? " 

" That 's their look out, as you will soon find, in the 
shooting season especially. It's you must get out of 
the way ; they have nothing to hurt. But it 's only 
when the farmers come into town they get so ' cut ; ' 
generally in the country you will find them sober 
enough. A rough lot in some respects, but uniformly 
kind, obliging, and civil. Come home to tea." 

Willingly, though first we had to run the gauntlet 
of a mimic snow-fight in the little quadrangle opposite 
the Governor's gate. There some of the college boys, 
having escorted so far their friends on their way home, 
took naturally to pelting the sentry, and then to have 
a few parting shots among themselves, or any passers 
by. Fast and thick the volleys flew, and a boy in 
front of us having missed a stinger with both hands, 
received it full smash in the face, to the intense de- 
light of the opposite party. " Butter fingers ! Butter 
fingers ! " was the yell ; and it did one good to hear 
the old English schoolboy word in so strange a place. 
Butter fingers ! it carried one back to English play- 
grounds, and told us better still of English blood 
training here to rule, please God, with healthy tone 
and heart in the future. Oh! for the days gone by, 
when that dear old expressive term was pitched con- 
temptuously at our diminished heads. 

So ended our first walk in Newfoundland, the fore- 
runner of many others. It was pardonable, indeed, if 
one felt by this time tired, for ploughing through the 



104 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

heavy snow was just the work of a ticket-of-leave man 
taking a turn at an amateur treadmill to keep his legs 
in practice. How dreary and blank it was outside, 
and how cheerful within, where my fair friend — if she 
still, most justly to herself, persisted in declaring that 
there was nothing to be named with the " cream of the 
service " — was a dead hand at brewing a fragrant cup of 
tea, richly garnished with that lubricant whose name 
she borrowed to express all that was best to her in the 
vast length and breadth of Her Majesty's military 
service. 





*<&&*- 



CHAPTER VIII. 



MARTIAL AND POLITICAL. 




HAT body of military men, long known in 
the Army List as " The Eoyal Newfound- 
land Companies/' was in these days at its 
very last gasp, destined soon after to be 
amalgamated with a more prosperous and important 
corps. The causes which led to this wholesome change, 
affecting largely the social and political bearing of the 
colony, will properly find a place in these pages. 

First, a few words respecting the regiment itself ; 
for, though called by an inferior title, a small regiment 
it had always been. It was principally made up of 
volunteers from regiments serving in North America ; 
usually married men, who, with families, and weary of 
the routine of parades and knocking about the world, 
jumped at the chance of a more settled kind of life, 
half -soldier, half-colonist, pretty much according to the 
taste of the superior on the spot. It was, indeed, 
ordered that these volunteers should be men of estab- 
lished character ; but this rule was little attended to, 
for the temptations to commanding officers in Canada 



106 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

and Nova Scotia to shunt their incorrigibles to the 
unknown regions of fish and fog land were too strong 
to be neglected ; and, as a matter of course, when a 
call for volunteers was made, all the hard drinkers and 
other pleasant boys were shipped off to the unhappy 
commandant of Newfoundland. 

Nor were the companies, in another sense, less of a 
refuge to the destitute, in regard to the gentlemen by 
whom they were officered. Very convenient, in those 
palmy days of old, were colonial corps, as asylums 
for fast young men, worn out young men, and young 
men without money; and again, as ladders, whereby 
to scramble into the service, to elderly young men, who 
could bring some Parliamentary lever to aid them up. 
It was usually appointed to control such mixed mate- 
rials to some , experienced yet hard-used veteran, whose 
office was but a hornets' nest if he attempted to 
enforce strict discipline, for which he might receive 
but scant thanks, as, under all circumstances, high 
efficiency was little expected. What was required at 
his hands was, by skill and tact, to keep things orderly, 
with a good outward military appearance. If he man- 
aged this, he had brought his experience to an excellent 
market. 

So matters crept on for many years, the Companies 
falling under the command of one veteran after another . 
the officers performing the duties expected of them 
well and comfortably ; not indeed emblazoning the 
colours with the titles of heroic deeds, but keeping up 
with the men a respectable semblance of martial order. 



Martial and Political. 107 

Until it so happened, during a political disturbance, 
when the force was suddenly called upon to act, cer- 
tain circumstances brought its discipline into such 
questionable relief, that it was determined to expunge 
the Companies as a. separate body, and by amalga- 
mating them with another regiment, annihilate that 
local influence which had grown stronger than other 
less tangible fealties. What this storm in an oil-jar 
was, and how the soldiers came to be mixed up in it, 
must now be briefly narrated. 

The great land of fish-and-fog has really no history, 
in the fair sense of the word, and has made no mark 
worthy of record on the great muster-rolls of the past. 
Xo battles have here been fought in which the liberties 
or rights of the oppressed have been wrested from the 
despot's grasp ; no revolutions here have torn society 
asunder with piteous trembling in a midnight earth- 
quake ; no grand discoveries to assuage pain, increase 
the means of the poor, or the luxuries of the rich, ever 
claimed a birthplace here ; no ruined, ivy-covered walls 
crowning the rugged heights above the harbour, point 
to feudal dignities of yore ; no moss-covered graves, 
beneath the rugged elms, sleep within the hallowed 
shade of the village church. There are no such sacred 
landmarks by which the course of time and progress 
may be traced, yet it will be shown that the land, with- 
out a place in history, has not been without its blessings, 
and great blessings too ; and its little story, unromantic 
for three hundred years, may be told in a very few 
words. 






108 Lost Amid the Fogs. 



The first adventurers who touched these shores, in 
the fifteenth century, came back with marvellous ac- 
counts of the shoals of fish upon the coast ; and repre- 
sented the land (for, remember, they came in the bright 
summer time) as pleasant and fair to look on, covered 
for the most part with thick woods, or open plains, 
upon which luscious wild fruits ripened in extraordinary 
abundance. They spoke of numerous harbours and 
inlets indenting the high cliffs, into which the gracious 
streams from the hills poured their sparkling waters. 
A few aboriginal red men were seen, who hunted the 
vast numbers of deer, wolves, bears, and ptarmigan. 
Was not this the sort of land into which to tempt the 
adventure of Anglo-Saxon enterprise ? Assuredly so ; 
and very soon it happened that summer after summer 
ships brought out hardy men, who, dropping anchor 
in the sheltered coves along the deep watered shores, 
and lighting their camp-fires on the beach, caught fish, 
dried it in the sun upon flakes of fir boughs ; fed gaily 
on choice fat venison ; hunted the wolf, bear, and 
marten for pastime ; and brought home in the fall of 
the leaf enough to turn into broad gold pieces, with 
something to spare for silk attire for the long-deserted 
wives. Increasing numbers necessitated at length the 
establishment of some law among the community ; a 
point settled by their agreeing to nominate as their 
chief magistrate for each season the captain of the first 
vessel arriving, who hoisted his flag as Fishing- Admiral 
for the summer. To him, as to a dictator, all questions 
were referred for arbitration ; and by his orders punish- 



Martial and Political. 109 

nient, where imprisonment was impossible, was promptly 
dealt out by means of a post and a good stout cowhide. 
For many years, indeed generations, during which, be 
it well borne in mind, there were no women among the 
adventurers, this rough and ready sort of justice an- 
swered every purpose. But at length, perhaps tempted 
by the building of better ships, some bolder wives 
ventured out with their husbands, and naturally, when 
the first storms of winter set in, the terrors of a return 
voyage across the broad Atlantic with bad provisions 
began to prevail, and the thoughts of braving the winter 
in sheltered woods and nooks to expand into experi- 
ment. The bold experiment succeeding, the example 
quickly formed the first real settlement. It was com- 
posed entirely of fishermen, rough, illiterate, hardy, and 
oleaginous, who, in a healthy climate, quickly increased 
to thousands. At length the Government at home 
dignified the little settlement and its branches by the 
name of a Colony, and in process of time sent out a 
Governor, with orders at first to reside among the people 
during the summer, but afterwards permanently all the 
year round. Under these, for the most part able men, 
duly authorised magistrates superseded the ancient and 
honourable tribunal of the Fishing- Admiral, until gra- 
dually the usual staff of colonial administration, with its 
Executive and Legislative Councils, Houses of Parlia- 
ment, and all the big wigs and little wigs, crept in under 
the wing of the great man, to help to cut and carve the 
annual colonial cake. For many years from the era of 
the baking of the first cake they cut and sliced at it pretty 



110 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

much as they pleased, with this proviso, that nothing 
could be eaten or taken away without the absolute 
consent of the Governor, or by a reference through him 
to the home authorities. This system eventually be- 
came a great bugbear. It was in truth an unutterable 
nuisance to Privy Councillors in England, to study and 
settle paltry questions anent the distribution of slices 
of stale colonial cake, even to the crumbs which fell 
(often furtively) beneath the legislative table. These 
impediments at length increased to that extent, com- 
bined with the difficulties of arriving at just decisions 
at such a distance, that it was determined to leave the 
more advanced colonists to cut, carve, and eat their own 
cake entirely as they pleased, under the awe-inspiring 
title of Kesponsible Government. This system began 
to be put into practice at the commencement of the 
reign of Sir Alexander Bannerman, who succeeded Sir 
Charles Darling as Governor, in 1857. Kings, Lords, 
and Commons, as the grand principles of the Consti- 
tution of the British Government, were forthwith in- 
augurated as a combined authority in the colony, on a 
scale, it is true, ridiculously small, yet not for that 
matter ridiculous in itself, provided the working element 
of strength in the governing and confidence in the 
governed existed. This unhappily at first did not ; and 
why it did not requires a fresh turn of the colonial 
kaleidoscope to understand. 

The first fisherman of this great fishing colony is, 
and always has been, the representative of the Holy 
Father. He is not, indeed, known in law as The 



Martial and Political. Ill 

Bishop of Newfoundland, but in fact and custom, 
except by a small minority in St John's, his proud pre- 
rogatives to the title are indisputably accepted. He 
lives, as might be expected, in a big house, under the 
shadow of his big cathedral, on the top of the biggest 
hill, facing the harbour ; and nothing that comes in or 
goes out, nothing happening, or likely to carry with it 
the most trivial influence, whether of public or domestic 
weal or woe, but is, in the general belief of the com- 
munity, well known within its walls. Independently 
of the ordinary fees paid into his coffers, for the usual 
services and rites of the Church, his grand annual 
revenue is collected by the merchants (whether Pro- 
testant or Catholic) from their Koman Catholic sub- 
ordinates, and no feudal lord of old ever received greater 
deference, or stricter obedience than he as to his as- 
sumed rights on this head. Gravely inconvenient would 
it be (as the worldly-wise merchants know to their 
cost), if, when all things were ready for the voyage, — 
vessels repaired and crammed with provisions, and the 
ice reported to the northward black with seals, — by 
some mysterious influence, not a man, save the scum 
of the streets, would embark on the perilous venture ; 
if, indeed, the heretical firm, who should stiffly tell the 
Bishop to gather his own taxes, were silently tabooed 
by the brave yet superstitious fishermen. To them is to 
understand a nod, and to obey. They hear, as it were, 
the cry, " Great is Diana of the Ephesians and the 
statue which fell down from Jupiter ! " and they ask no 
questions of the why and wherefrom of its influence. 



112 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

This is the time of sowing ; and then cometh the har- 
vest, wherein not a ship conies back from the sealing, 
but the priest is duly advised thereof, and not a hatch 
is lifted until the Eoman excise is strictly exacted. 
As soon as may be after the anchor is dropped, the 
holy man steps from the merchant's wharf to the deck 
of the ship, where the men, to whom half the profits 
of the voyage belong, with folded arms and reeking 
in grease, are lolling expectantly about the greasier 
decks. 

" God save all here ! " says he, with the sign of the 
cross, and a pleasant look around. 

All hands are lifted respectfully to touch the shaggy 
caps at the holy salutation : though, if the truth must 
be spoken, the welcome is rather of a chilling character. 
Of this the priest takes not the slightest notice, but 
unabashed, and still more affably, says — 

" Well, boys, glad to see ye all back again ; and what 
luck?" 

" Ah ! but indade, father, sorra the much o' that." 

" Well, now, I '11 be saying, boys, that the blessing 
has followed ye all ; 1 11 go bail there 's seven thousand 
beauties under our feet now." 

Hark to the howl which runs round the deck, and 
the men begin to gather round the priest. 

" Indeed, then, we have na', father," cry a score of 
voices, " and that 's the holy truth." 

" Now, to think of that, boys, after all we 'd heard of 
the craturs this spring. Say, then, six thousand five 
hundred ? " 



Martial and Political 113 

" Begorra, and nothing like it, father," shout the 
chorus again. 

" To think of that now ! Well, now, five thousand ? " 

" The divil a skin over four thousand in the ship, 
father, and by that's the truth/' 

" Well, my son, and a fine voyage too. The Lord be 
praised for it! You'll say the good word first, Pat 
0' Flaherty, for I know ye of old as an honest boy. 
What shall I write down to your name for the Church 
and the Blessed Mother ? " 

" Ah, father ! be aisey wid me now. Sure ye know 
it 's me that 's badly off these three years with the wife 
and childer, and the praties all gone. You 11 be putting 
me down a pound." 

" A pound ! ye villain! Is it a pound I'd tell his 
Lordship, and you the skipper of the ship ? 1 11 put ye 
down three pounds, Pat ; and if ye make me ashamed, 
1 11 be settling myself for it. Now, Tim Nowlan, hold 
up here, my man ; what shall I say for ye ? " 

"Ah, now, father ! we've had the bad say sins afore 
say tin shillings, and the Lord bless ye !" 

•• Do — you — see — the — ind — of — that — rope, Tim 
Xowlan, I say ? If it were not for disgracing my coat, 
I d be after lathering ye meself. You 're down for a 
pound ; and little for ye, a single boy as ye are.'"' 

So, between threats and persuasions, chaff and dark 
forebodings, the clever ambassador tottles up his list, 
down to the boy who serves as cook's mate, and drops 
it at the counting-house of the merchant as he walks 
out of the premises. The rest of the affair gives him 



114 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

no anxiety. He is quite sure the amount will be de- 
ducted from the men's accounts, and a cheque despatched 
in due time to the Bishop's secretary. The merchant 
makes a wry grimace at being thus converted into a 
Romish tax-gatherer ; but no doubt his Lordship on the 
big hill enjoys this seasoning of the dish, reflecting on 
the pleasure and profit which results in thus constitut- 
ing himself his own ecclesiastical commissioner among 
the prosperous yet graceless heretics. 

Yet it is right, when thus speaking of the enormous 
influence of the priesthood, to show where it acts for 
good. Many an act of retribution is secretly prompted 
from the confessional, where the guilty man, revealing 
his spoilings and pickings, receives advice which con- 
science compels him to act on. One morning, when 
leaning against the desk of a merchant's office, a man 
came in, and, casting a sheepish look at the proprietor, 
said, " I 'm come to pay up, sir ; and here it is." 

"Pay what up?" 

" Wal, sir, d'ye mind the bit of a dust we had about 
five years back ? " 

" Ah ! " said old Nic, the dawn beginning to break, 
"you were teller on the wharf then, and you cheated 
me ; was that it, eh ? " 

" Wal, sir, we had a breeze about the fish, and that 
parted us ; and, if I must speak it out, I did reckon up 
a little wrong, I believe. I 've made it up as near as I 
can — 'bout £80, I believe ; and here it is." 

" Hand it over." 

"Wal now, sir," cried the fellow, as he tendered the 



Martial and Political. 115 

notes very reluctantly, "if you have overcharged me 
sometimes, as I daresay you have, by mistake, we might 
be quits, you see, 'stead of you taking the money." 

"Not a penny," cried old Nic, bringing down his 
hand a clincher on the desk, — "not a penny. Here, 
Tom, carry this money over to credit. And you, my 
man, tell Father Kearney, with my compliments, he 
has done quite right, quite right ; good morning." 

Bravo ! old Nic. 

Thus of the seals, so of the cod, and the herring, and 
all the other smaller fry. Not a man goes out in a 
boat but knows that, of his labours, a part goes to 
Mother Church. That he need not plead ignorance, the 
Bishop takes good care to name a day, in the height of 
the season, upon which he ordains that all fish caught 
are scrupulously to be set apart for holy use. It would 
rather be more correct and fair to say, for the Church 
and for the glory of the Church alone. For willing 
testimony should be borne to this refulgent fact, that, 
not for his own luxuries, not to administer to his own 
pleasures, are these lordly revenues collected by the 
Bishop, but purely to promote the vigour of his own 
faith according to the light of his conscience. With 
his priests and other ecclesiastical staff, he lives in a 
certain state on the pinnacle of the hill in a palace, 
upon the external decoration of which but little of his 
taxes have been wasted ; and the same may be said of 
the great cathedral itself, as well as of the nunneries, 
schools, colleges, workshops, &c, which, beneath that 
holy shade, form quite a little separate township, wherein 



116 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

his word and will are absolute law. Nor in the interior 
of his palace, fitted only for the residence of a plain, 
simple gentleman, has gew-gawgery, or decoration, been 
unnecessarily lavished. Truly, with the great means at 
his disposal, and considering the unquestioned manner 
in which his pleasure concerning them might be ac- 
cepted, there is much in the absence of worldly ostenta- 
tion which commands unfeigned respect. 

But to turn the thoughts of men away from the true 
service of God to which they have immediately conse- 
crated their energies, the tempter has more than one 
illusion to hold out. A man may shut up in his heart 
the seeds and roots of many mortal weaknesses, but a 
chink will ever remain open, out of which some will 
spring. If he trample down, in blindly outraging his 
nature, all domestic loves, another lust, that of power 
and place, will assuredly raise its rank, unfragrant head 
in that congenial soil. 

It was upon this rock the worthy Bishop stumbled 
in his otherwise fair and even path of life. Had he 
looked behind and reflected on the experience of his 
predecessors, he might have avoided the obstacle, even 
by withstanding the devil in plain worldly wisdom, and 
escaped the terrible fall the arch-fiend gave him ; which 
true men of all persuasions were grieved to witness. 
This is how it came to pass. 

We have already seen that, for many generations, 
the simple people who composed the fishing settlements, 
even long after the seat of government had been concen- 
trated at St John's, were contented with the institutions 



Martial and Political. 117 

which they received at the pleasure of the mother 
country. But at length, as the city increased, an agi- 
tation sprung up for a representative legislature, at a 
time (more than thirty years ago) when Sir Thomas 
Cochrane was Governor, and the mitre of the Koman 
Bishopric sat on the head of Dr Fleming. Up to this, 
Protestants and Catholics had lived together on terms 
of brotherhood, untinged by the animosities which the 
differences in religion too usually engender. They had 
worked together to obtain the relief of the Catholics 
from all civil disabilities ; and again in the demands 
which were urged upon the Home Government for 
representative institutions. But, alas ! no sooner was 
the boon acceded, no sooner did the Governor pronounce 
the words which gave them a right to an opinion as to 
how their cake should be cut, then the cake itself, the 
whole cake — yea, every plum in it, petrified into a great 
bone of discord. Even this might have been arranged ; 
but, tempted beyond his strength, the Bishop mingled 
his enormous influence with the elections. Political 
feelings have since banded men in parties together, 
separated old friends and families, and intensified their 
antipathies, as the party war-cries grew louder and 
louder at each election. So bitter did the strife become, 
so accursed were the gangrenous feelings engendered, 
that Sir Thomas Cochrane, who had laboured long (yet 
prematurely) in obtaining a successful reply to the 
demands of the people, and who for other causes was 
strongly entitled to their respect and gratitude, was 
actually hooted, hissed, and pelted by an enormous 



118 Lost Amid the Foys. 

mob, as he embarked at St John's for England on the 
resignation of his government. Well may he have 
bitterly thought of the sad words of Wisdom, as he 
steamed through the Narrows seaward: "I looked on 
all the works my hands had wrought, and on the labour 
that I had laboured to do, and behold all was vanity 
and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under 
the sun." 

But a time of retribution came to the Bishop in his 
turn ; and the weight of the terse adage which sums up 
in those common words the result of human glory, 
power, unrest, and every other blind search after earthly 
happiness, came home to him sorely in the latter days of 
life. The venerable prelate was a good, kind man at 
heart, and the reaction was therefore the more crushing. 
Stories are still told of him, how, while strength re- 
mained, he went alone and humbly to the doors of per- 
sons who had differed with him, or to whom he believed 
he might possibly have done injustice, to seek their for- 
giveness and reconciliation. Looking down into the 
black chaldron, out of which he had fondly hoped to 
refine the pure gold to regild the tarnished glory of his 
Church, and seeing there instead the abominations, the 
follies, the strife, the ugliness, which his labours had 
kindled, he bitterly repented that his hand had not been 
stayed, and mourned that the time when the English 
gentleman, whom his low and intensely ignorant rabble 
had insulted, ruled the land, could not again return. 
So he too departed, a Solomon, with the words of wisdom 



Martial and Political. 119 

and repentance on his lips ; and yet, as in the great 
story of old, his successor heeded them not. 

Then cried they, when Dr Mullock ascended the 
mitred chair, " Ah ! here is a wise man who will not 
commit the faults of the good old Bishop just dead. 
This one will not meddle in worldly things. He knows 
better than to compromise his position with the issue ot 
political pastorals, and in exciting men's passions for 
party purposes. Now we shall have peace and quiet once 
more." For a while they were right, and might still 
have been so, were it not that those influences which 
impel the Eoman ecclesiastic to the love of power are 
too strong for resistance ; and to an able man, sprung 
originally from the people, and at length seated on that 
high eminence above the city, whither every breeze, 
laden with piscatory incense, wafted the knowledge of 
his power, the desire himself to move the secret levers 
of state became daily more unconquerable. At length 
he clutched them with a strong hand, and, with his 
own men and creatures in place, long wielded them at 
pleasure. Like the surface of a bog covered with bright 
green moss, but stagnant rottenness beneath, so for 
this time the authority of the Fish colony was handled 
ostensibly with success, while inwardly abuses and 
corruptions were sapping out its very vitals. 

But now, having brought clown our story to more 
recent times, another character appears on the stage, 
destined to exercise much influence over the fortunes of 
his fellow-men beyond the Great Fog Banks. 



120 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

In 1857, his Excellency Sir Alexander Bannerman 
was appointed from the government of the Bahamas to 
that of Newfoundland. He had also been Governor of 
Prince Edward's Island, a colony not without an interest 
in the fish trade, and, moreover, as he hailed from 
Aberdeen, and had personally engaged, in his early 
days, both in the seal and w r hale fisheries, he brought 
to Newfoundland, together with a reputation for honesty, 
a character for ripe experience in the great ocean staple, 
and of being a good fisherman to boot in every sense of 
the term. At the time of assuming the reins of power, 
he was well advanced in years ; his tall commanding 
figure, though apparently feeble to a casual observer, 
still retaining the great characteristics of the majestic 
proportions for which it had been conspicuous in youth ; 
while the simple trust beaming in every expression of 
his face was a sure passport to the respect of all with 
whom he was brought in connexion. Age had, while 
making inroads on his physical strength, left his mind 
fresh and unimpaired; assisting it, moreover, with a 
memory which never slipped the minutest trifle from its 
prolific net. Extremely liberal in his political opinions 
during the many years he sat in Parliament, and more- 
over a coadjutor of O'Connell in obtaining the release 
of Catholic disabilities, he had another claim to a 
cordial reception from the most bigoted of the Irish 
community. However this may be, it was soon pretty 
evident to outside observers, that the " First Fisherman" 
of the colony, the able prelate on the hill, was little 



Martial and Political. 121 

inclined to yield an inch of influence or position to any 
other fisherman sent here by authority ; and that the 
question to be resolved under the shadow of the Cathe- 
dral was, how to make all inferior fishermen believe 
that the chief hook-and-liner still dwelt there, while the 
ostensible master of the State smack was drifting into 
an opposite channel. So having to deal with a man 
utterly guileless and unsuspicious of craft or cajolery, 
the Bishop steered the staggering skiff pretty much as 
he willed for a long time. Indeed, the two chief fisher- 
men became quite cordial in their acquaintance, the 
Bishop being a frequent visitor at Government House, 
and well acquainted with the official mahogany. It is 
not known whether any thoughts or hopes of proselytis- 
ing entered the episcopal ideas, but at any rate in those 
palmy days he presented the Governor with a large gold- 
clasped Douay Bible, which conspicuously figured ever 
afterwards, a mark of affection and respect, from his 
faithful and loving " ^ John Thomas," on the drawing- 
room table of her Ladyship. The acquaintance may 
even have been said to have ripened into that stage which 
warrants a little badinage without offence ; for on a 
certain occasion it is recorded that, on the Bishop com- 
plaining of palpitation of the heart, the canny old Scotch 
gentleman looked up and said, " 'Deed, man, and I 've been 
lang thinking you 're right ; an' it wouldna surprise me 
to hear ony day ye 'd come doon, while stalking up that 
great big cathedral o' yours, like an auld pair o' boots." 
It must be confessed it was horridly familiar, and the 



122 



Lost Amid the Fogs. 



Bishop, before his chaplain, by no means relished it ; but 
it is fair to add that it was spoken when the one great 
fisherman had become wide awake to the tactics and 
policy of the other ; and just before the final blow up, 
which is now to be related. This will bring us back, as 
it were, in a circle to our original point of starting, — the 
share of the late Koyal Newfoundland Companies in 
the programme of this mimic page of warlike history. 





CHAPTER IX. 



THE KNELL FROM CATHEDRAL HILL. 




F there be one advantage greater than another 
which a liberal constitution, a free press, an 
encouragement of education, and a deep, in- 
ward cultivation of religion, bestows on a 
people, it possibly should lie in an under-current of 
general belief that, within such conditions and circum- 
stances, the public weal must prosper, notwithstanding 
the blots and deficiencies which any particular leader 
might momentarily cause ; so that, when the engine of 
State should work a little crankily, there is duly pro- 
vided, by sound public opinion and its free expression, 
the necessary machinery for repairing it. But in this 
last principle lies the whole gist of the matter; for, 
strange as it may appear, with all the above advantages 
and safeguards, it still is possible to find a land in which, 
while the principal men are absorbed in the hope of the 
acquisition of rapid wealth, public opinion is either dead 
or stagnant — so stagnant, at any rate, as to view with 
indifference the liberties of the constitution long stifled 
by a power unauthorised and irresponsible save to itself. 



124 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

Thus the puffing little engineof Fish-and-fog-land, work- 
ing under gwasj-responsible stokers and drivers for some 
five or six years, had become, in the year of grace I860, 
so very rusty and cranky indeed, that, among the share- 
holders of the company, there was a general feeling of 
suspicion and distrust concerning it. The Chief Fisher- 
man on the Cathedral Hill had long assumed the chair, 
and given his orders concerning it ; but, about this time, 
it would not run smoothly on the grooves he chose for 
it, and it wanted but a little more pressure on the valve 
to burst and blow up altogether. This weight the irre- 
sponsible driver (determined that the engine should run 
where he listed, and nowhere else) supplied ; and very 
unexpected by him, as to the rest of the shareholders, 
was the explosion which followed. 

Fish-and-fog-land was, about this time, in a denser 
fog than usual. The supporters of the Bishop were dis- 
contented with themselves and their vassalage. Among 
them were able and estimable men, who, though tied 
down by the bigotry of their faith, were sitting restless 
and uneasy under an unlawful fealty, but still unable of 
themselves, or unwilling, to shake off the mediaeval yoke. 
Murmurs, mild and respectful, rose here and there, which 
might have warned a more cautious usurper of the 
coming storm ; until at length, though still mildly, the 
Government — his Government ! — actually neglected or 
evaded carrying out certain legislative enactments upon 
which his Lordship's wishes had been promulgated. It 
was, indeed, high time for the mighty voice from Cathe- 
dral Hill to make itself heard ; and soon, by one of those 



The Knell from Cathedral Hill. 125 

highly- seasoned documents ironically termed " Pastor- 
als," the roar reverberated over hill and vale to the outer- 
most fishing-cove of the colony. There was certainly no 
mistake about the language, nor ambiguity respecting 
the meaning of the Bishop to his flock. The present 
holders of power were condemned up-hill and down-dale 
for their shortcomings, their pilferings, their selfishness, 
and their misappropriation of the public funds. He 
painted them to posterity by the choice epithets of 
" State-paupers and locust-like officials ;" and he called 
upon the electors of the country to look out for new 
representatives, and to hold themselves in readiness for 
another election, " the which/' added the Bishop, " may 
be very soon/' — ! ! ! 

It would be no great stretch of imagination to realise 
the Bishop's satisfaction as he penned the above dignified 
record of his political opinions, whereby he had thus 
typically lashed the backs of the rebellious ministers, 
and which should convey a universal consternation 
throughout the length and breadth of Fish-and-fog-land. 
il Ah, ah ! " it may be supposed, was the turn and drift 
of his inward chuckle. " Ah, ah ! this will teach them 
to mind my words and wishes a little more ; they will 
none of them like to risk their seats and lose their pretty 
pickings. Oh, oh ! Sir Alexander thought I was com- 
ing down, like a pair of old boots, did he ! He '11 soon 
see there 's a kick left in the old boots yet ! They all 
want a lesson, and they shall have it." Can we imagine 
Cardinal Manning, under any circumstances (say when, 
even after dinner, the Pope's health is drunk before the 



126 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

Queen's), announcing that he had made up his mind to 
dismiss the ministers, dissolve Parliament, and order a 
new general election throughout the country ? If Sir 
Alexander Bannerman had had any private doubts be- 
fore as to the person who was de facto Chief Fisherman 
in the fish-colony, this remarkable " Pastoral " must have 
completely satisfied them. But the churchman had 
wofully miscalculated the moral force which lay dormant 
beneath the usually placid and benevolent exterior of the 
old British gentleman, who very speedily showed that he 
was equal to the occasion. 

" He was a man that felt all chief 

From roots o' hair to sole o' stockin', 
Square set with thousan'-ton belief 

In his own strength, if airth went rockin'. 
Ole Sandy wouldn't stand see-saw 

'Bout doin' things till they wuz dun with ; 
He 'd smashed the tables o' the Law, 

In time o' need, to load his gun with." 

In other words, the old Scotchman at once decided that 
he must fill his position, or resign, and had not long to 
wait before he had a favourable opportunity of showing 
his metal. The leader of the Government, an able man, 
but placed in a false position, so that he could no longer 
steer a course acceptable to his feudal lord while pre- 
serving his own independence with dignity, floundered 
in the House, until, by a few ill-advised remarks, he 
compromised his position personally with the Governor. 
First the minister, then the Parliament were dismissed, 
and a general election for new members called through- 
out the colony. "If," as no doubt his Excellency rea- 



The Knell from Cathedral Hill. 127 

soned, " the good sense of the country returns honest 
men, with which the business of the Government can 
be conducted — well ; if not, they must themselves be 
responsible for their own shortcomings. But it is my 
duty to sound the state of public feeling, and to leave 
no means untried whereby the hand of legitimate power 
may be armed and strengthened." 

Now, to any one who has learned anything about 
election-times among a people of Milesian blood, it may 
easily be apparent what a terrible broil and commotion 
rose in the fish-kettle when the proclamations for the 
new election were announced. It was a question of life and 
death to the Bishop ; or a loss of prestige and power, 
next to it. So he put forth all he knew ; and his numer- 
ous staff of priests, scattered through the out-harbours, 
bays, villages, and fishing-settlements, laid their sacred 
shoulders to the political wheel as well. But all in vain. 
The Protestants, except in St John's, where they are 
outnumbered (six to one), have, in Newfoundland, a 
small majority still ; and their spirit being as fairly 
aroused as that of the opposite party, in spite of intimi- 
dations and serious rows, which occurred in several 
places, it soon began to appear, as the election-returns 
arrived, that the Bishop's servants would be in the de- 
scending scale of the balance. One may easily imagine 
the dismay under the shadow of Cathedral Hill as this 
unwelcome result became more evident daily. 

Still, so orderly was the conduct of the people, so 
friendly had been Protestants and Catholics one towards 
another for generations past, that it was never supposed 



128 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

but when the excitement of the elections had passed 
away, the new members would duly take their seats, 
and business be resumed without any difficulty. Kiots 
and rows were unknown in St John's, and the organisa- 
tion for their suppression was therefore practically non- 
existent. It happened, however, that there dwelt in 
St John's a citizen of good position, who, being a per- 
vert from the faith of his fathers, was the more violent 
in his new opinions. He had held office under the 
Bishop's Government, and was resolved, coute quicoute, 
to hold a seat under the new government, and do valiant 
battle as heretofore for his Lord therein. He lost his 
election in the outharbours for which he stood, but, 
under cover of a lot of rowdies, suddenly, by his elo- 
quence, forced the re turning-officer to give a false 
certificate of his election. Hastening back to the 
capital armed with this paper, he had the amazing 
assurance to force his way into the Parliament House 
on the day of opening, whence he was expelled with 
difficulty only just before the Governor and his staff 
appeared to inaugurate the assembly with the usual 
proceedings. Hinc illce lacrymce — soon about to flow. 

A large crowd, mainly composed of sympathisers 
with the defeated politician, had assembled before the 
doors of the house. It need scarcely be added that they 
were gathered from the most ignorant fanatics of St 
John's. Not that there is anything peculiar in this, it 
is the same in all large cities ; but it is not in every 
city, thank heaven ! that a man of education, and who 
had already held an honourable position in the councils 



The Knell from Cathedral Hill 129 

of a government, will stoop to make use of such tools 
for purposes of aggrandisement. Let alone, the people, 
though ignorant enough, are quiet, orderly, and kind ; 
but even under such circumstances it takes bat little 
skill to mingle together the foul elements of rapine, 
misery, and destruction. Human nature is ever too 
ready, in some shape or other, to prey upon its fellows. 

So, no sooner had the Governor's carriage disap- 
peared behind the gates of the official residence, than 
the mob, like the herd of swine with the devils in them, 
rushed violently down a steep place leading to the prin- 
cipal part of the city in Water Street. There, furious 
at the expulsion of their friend from the house, they 
commenced forthwith to plunder and destroy the shops 
and stores of persons who had taken a leading part in 
opposition faith and principles. For a considerable 
time they had all their own way, robbing and gutting 
in a way quite new to Fish-and-fog-land. In vain did 
several priests, hurrying down from Cathedral Hill, 
nobly try to stem a torrent which had been become by 
loot still more polluted with strong drink. Expostula- 
tion was all in vain. Such a horrid scene Newfoundland 
had never before witnessed. The roars and curses of 
her infuriated ruffians wanted alone the aid of fire to 
make her principal mart in its mimic resemblance to a 
little Gehenna complete. 

This, no doubt, would have been, but was not to be. 
As the long spring day waned to its close, the handful 
of men who composed the Koyal Newfoundland Com- 
panies were seen coming down the hill at the double 



130 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

from the barracks, led by an able and experienced 
officer, who, had he possessed the power, would pro- 
bably have cleared the streets, without loss of life, in 
twenty minutes, at the point of the bayonet. But a 
commanding officer possesses no power to act, except 
at the instant command of a magistrate, an official who 
can scarcely be expected, at such a wild crisis, to form 
the clearest judgment upon life and death. So, in the 
middle of the principal street, on a point where, beneath 
the market-house, the place is commanded by a steep 
hill, the troops were halted, and there exposed, for two 
mortal hours, to the ridicule and stones of the mob, 
who paid as much attention to the Kiot Act as they 
would have done to a snow-storm. They laughed at 
the notion of the troops firing on them : certainly not 
without reason. Three-quarters of the soldiers had 
intermarried with the people, and it was scarcely to be 
wondered that they reposed some confidence in their 
friends. At length, as twilight descended on a scene 
so strange in the Ancient colony, a shot, nobody knew 
how, and nobody could tell afterwards, was fired at the 
troops ; and then, at whose immediate command nobody 
exactly knew, and nobody could tell afterwards, an 
irregular volley was poured at close point : blank upon 
the crowd, which instantly turned to flee with hideous 
yells of terror. At that moment — (0 Bishop ! why not 
sooner ? You knew your power over the people ! why 
let them loot, and plunder, and outrage humanity for 
half-a-day within a very earshot unheeded ?) — the great 
bells of the big cathedral on the hill clanged and clashed 



The Knell from Cathedral Hill 131 

an impetuous summons for assembly within the holy 
walls, and instantly the wretched tools, cowed and be- 
wildered, yet foaming with anger, their oily garments 
bedabbled here and there with blood, swarmed up the 
ascent to hear the commands of the Great Fisherman. 
As that ominous knell reverberated over the city, the 
long aisle of the sacred building, its capacious naves, 
and the great square in front, became filled ; until the 
iron gates closed like a net upon the human " school/' 
A wondrous sight it must have been ! The raging 
crowd pressing on each other, surging and swaying to 
and fro to get nearer to the altar ; the priests hurrying 
in to don their sacred vestments ; the servants struggling 
to light the lamps and candles ; the cries for revenge, 
for a leader, for orders ; and the earnest voice of the 
Bishop pleading, commanding silence, even to him long, 
long in vain ! At length, falling on their knees at the 
raising of the sacred relics, they heard his commands 
solemnly given, that they should disperse and go to 
their homes in peace, nor leave them again that night, 
on pain of excommunication. The great gates were 
flung open, and in an hour the stars twinkled over a 
city where slumber and silence apparently reigned 
supreme. 

But, in truth, it was not so. In more than one poor 
fishers' home there was weeping and wailing for the 
dead, and women were secretly staunching wounds as 
best they might, fearful to call in better aid lest it 
should betray to the avenging law complicity in the 
riots. Even under the very shadow of the cathedral 



1 32 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

there lay, terribly wounded by a rifle ball in the leg, 
a priest, an amiable and highly-respected man. Strange 
to say, he was the Koman Catholic chaplain to the 
garrison ; and, doubly anxious to prevent a collision 
between the two divisions of his flock brought so 
suddenly into antagonistic bearing towards each other, 
he had thrown himself upon the rioters in earnest 
expostulation, and was unhappily struck down with the 
first volley. How many were killed and wounded was 
never known; though that it was far smaller than 
might have been anticipated may be understood when 
it was reported officially that next day, where the troops 
had stood in loading, bullets had been picked up, the 
which, had Yankees or Frenchmen faced the veterans, 
would have found a very different destination. A 
strange thing afterwards to think of, that the only 
volley the regiment ever fired in anger was the knell 
of its own existence. 

It was all over, that storm in the fish-kettle ; the 
winds and waves fell suddenly as they rose, and a great 
calm prevailed. The Bishop moreover received, very 
happily, his coup-de-grace. Frustrated in all political 
moves, and furious at the late occurrences, especially 
at the calling out of the troops, he went down in hot 
haste to the Governor, and vented his indignation in 
vehement accents. Sir Alexander, a veteran general 
in all such matters, received him much as usual, quietly 
and courteously; tapping the well-worn cover of his 
Scotch horn, while he listened to the angry ecclesiastic 
denouncing the actions of the authorities. 



The Knell from Cathedral Hill. 133 

11 I won't have my people shot, Sir Alexander ; I tell 
you, I tell you, sir, I won't have my people murdered. 
I won't have my priests assassinated in cold blood ! " 

■ • What business had they there, Bishop ? Why 
were they not in their proper places, my Lord ? " 

" I say, Sir Alexander Bannerman, I won't have them 
shot ; I won t have my people murdered. There are eight 
thousand men with sealing guns, who swear revenge ; 
and last night I had to produce the sacred relics to quiet 
them, or they would have come down and torn Govern- 
ment House stone by stone from the ground ; and it 's 
you, I tell ye, Sir Alexander, who may be thankful." 

" Thankful for naething, Bishop ; for I am weel sure 
that if they had thought of it, ye 'd hae sent for Leddy 
Bannerman to the Nunnery, where they d hae taken 
gude care of her." 

It was a happy shot, and the last one fired at 
this remarkable interview, of which the substance by 
popular report can alone be recorded. A happy shot, 
indeed, which brought down the Bishop at last, as 
the Governor predicted, like " an auld pair o' boots." 
Lady Bannerman among the nuns ! Lady Bannerman 
speaking her honest, plain, straightforward heresy among 
those reserved and sacred damsels ! Horror of horrors ! 
Better fifty priests be shot than that such an evil as 
this should be inflicted. For the Bishop well knew, 
from past hospitable experience, that the good lady 
was a woman little likely to blink at what she thought 
an erroneous state of things, but far more likely to do 
an incalculable amount of mischief (or good, as the 



134 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

case may be) by plain, heart-searching words in cir- 
cumstances of honourable provocation. Lady Banner- 
man at the convent ! a guest among the nuns ! As 
soon would the Bishop had the city powder-magazine 
scooped out beneath his cathedral. So the curtain 
which rose to solemn tragedy fell on comedy and 
laughter ; for we can easily fancy the arch humour 
with which the keen old Scotch gentleman told her 
Ladyship how he had discomfited the Bishop, and saved 
Government House from the sack of those awful eight 
thousand retainers, " all armed with sealing guns ! " 

It may not be out of place to quote a forcible passage 
from a book,* lately published in the United States, 
containing the most extraordinary record of faith, mis- 
guided enterprise, superstition, ignorance, self-abnega- 
tion, and unswerving courage amid unspeakable horrors 
ever brought to light. 

" Holy Mother Church, linked in sordid wedlock to 
governments and thrones, numbered among her servants 
a host of the worldly and the proud, whose service to God 
was but the service of themselves ; and many, too, who, 
in the sophistry of the human heart, thought themselves 
true soldiers of heaven, while earthly pride, interest, 
and passion, were the life-springs of their zeal. This 
mighty Church of Kome, in her imposing march along 
the high road of history, heralded as infallible and 
divine, astounds the gazing world with prodigies of 
contradiction : now the protector of the oppressed, now 
the right arm of tyrants ; now breathing charity and 

* " The Jesuits in North America," by Francis Parkman. 



The Knell from Cathedral Hill 135 

love, now dark with the passions of hell ; now beam- 
ing with celestial truth, now masked in hypocrisy and 
lies ; now a virgin, now a harlot ; an imperial queen; 
and a tinselled actress. Clearly she is of earth, not of 
heaven ; and her transcendantly dramatic life is a type 
of the good and ill, the baseness and nobleness, the 
foulness and purity, the love and hate, the pride, pas- 
sion, truth, falsehood, fierceness, and tenderness, that 
battle in the restless heart of man." 

This is the verdict on the Komish Church two cen- 
turies back. Is the picture in our own time so very 
different ? 




CHAPTER X. 



THE LAST DUEL IN NEWFOUNDLAND. 




HERE was yet another knell rung forth in 
that imperious peal from the belfry of the 
Catholic Cathedral of St John's, at eight 
p.m., on the night of the 13th of May 1861. 
Then jarred on chilled and awestruck ears the warn- 
ing-note for the dissolution of the old colonial corps 
called the Newfoundland Companies. Their first and 
only action with their friends in the principal street of 
the city, compromising as it did, in some respects, the 
prestige of their discipline and efficiency, proved fatal 
to their own life and unity. 

It was with the system and not with the soldiers that 
the fault lay, and the order for abolishing it was no 
doubt wise and well-timed. Yet it is not to be won- 
dered at, when the news came which changed the scarlet 
into green, dispersing far and wide so many old com- 
rades and acquaintances, there was deep regret among 
the class in which both officers and men had formed 
homes and kindred. Among their betters there were 
sigfhs and lamentations not few nor far between ; for 



The Lctst Duel in Newfoundland. 137 

sage mammas, and bright-eyed innocents too, understand 
full well how far less valuable is the wandering officer, 
who to-day is and to-morrow is gone, to the man who 
must perforce make the colony his abiding-place and 
home. 

But the fatal day arrived when the transport-pennant, 
fluttering on Signal Hill, heralded the Canadian Kifles 
steaming up the "Narrows," at the entrance of the 
lovely little landlocked harbour. There is nothing of 
this old delight left save a few scattered portraits in 
some gilt-edged albums, precious and to be loved until 
the bright eyes which bend wistfully over them shall 
with themselves fade with their freshness away. 

It was said before, that, for all public purposes, New- 
foundland had made no mark in history ; so neither is 
it likely that the history of her martial corps will ever 
be historically handed down. Old stories of love, of 
virtue, and vice, in varied conflict together, are common 
enough in little towns as well as in big ones, at home 
as well as in the colonies. I put aside a crowd of such 
to pass on to one sad tale connected with the Old Com- 
panies, which, as illustrating better than much dry dis- 
cursive talk the manners and customs of thirty or forty 
years ago in the great fish colony, and as belonging to 
a country so utterly untroubled with adventure or sen- 
sation as this, may well be preserved. 

It is moreover the story of a duel ; let us gladly add 
the last duel fought in Newfoundland. In those old 
times before steam had so rapidly shuffled mankind 
together, and blunted the rough edges of some of our 



138 Lost Amid the Fogs, 

vices, card -playing was much more of a business or 
important pastime than it is now. Men did not sit 
down in the long evenings of winter only, when a little 
unbending or excitement to assist a friendly intercourse 
is acceptable ; but they played then summer and winter, 
spring and autumn, beginning in the long hours of 
morning and ending in the short ones of night. But, 
as will be supposed, it required something more than 
the sober rubber with a sixpenny point, the feeble 
amusement of their degenerate successors, to keep up 
the excitement for such a time ; for when these men 
pulled off their outer coats and snow-shoes in the hall, 
they came for a good cut in at heavy stakes, with a long 
wind up at that rattling game the three-card loo, of 
Irish origin. If merchants, they staked nothing less 
than seal points and a quintal of cod on the rubber, 
and many a goodly ship with its costly cargo changed 
hands nightly on the turn up of a card. It was merely 
the usual excitement of their gambling style of business 
carried to perfection in a different channel than the 
counting-house and ledger. " Do you see that fine old 
gentleman," said a friend, in a mysterious whisper be- 
hind his hand, at the very first whist-party to which I 
was invited ; " Ah, sir ! that man 's a wonderful fellow ! 
He landed here from Ireland in an old pair of cordu- 
roys, with half-a-crown in his pocket, and carved his 
fortune out of pure luck. He won at three-card loo a 
lot of cask staves, and set up as a cooper ; then he won 
some tons of seal-oil to fill the casks ; then he won a 
schooner which he sent off to the seal-fishery, and she 



The>Last Duel in Newfoundland. 139 

brought back a thumping trip ; he staked this against a 
building yard, won it, played again for a parcel of oil 
vats, and won those. So he went on till he had made a 
hundred thousand pounds, sir ! yes, sir, a hundred 
thousand pounds ! and all the loose cash in the colony. 
Oh, sir ! but he's a dead hand at ' five-and- forty ; ' and 
if you happen to have a few half sovereigns to spare, 
they 11 soon find their way into his pocket. But for all 
that, he's a man risen on the wings of luck by his own 
industry, and has filled the highest posts in the Govern- 
ment with credit." 

" He has a most benevolent countenance for all that." 

" So he has ; just the sort of benevolence beaming 
from it which suits a good tough official ; smile and 
promise as much as you please, but precious little 
performance. Oh ! his benevolence is the right sort you 
rely on it." 

" You say he landed here a poor boy. He looks to 
me born and bred of a good sort." 

"So he is naturally, no better. Why," added my 
confidential friend, " he 's an offshoot of one of the best 
families in Ireland. He 's the image of the old Mar- 
quis." 

"Ah ! that accounts for it." 

" Yes, sir ; he calls his country-seat after the old place 
in Ireland. Ah! there are plenty of such offshoots 
here ; many of them in humble calling, but bearing the 
name, and, my word, you can't mistake them ; it 's the 
blood plain all over. Did you mark, the other day, that 
tall elegant girl who waited on you at the Captain's ? 






140 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

She's a L . dresses rn stuffs and prints, while her 

first cousins, the very image of her, are maids of honour 
to the Queen. But that's just the difference between 
the right and wrong side of the hedge, you know, and 
it 's here we have only the one." 

" And is our friend an exception with regard to his 
luck in business or play, whichever it is ? '' 

" Not at all ; why, when you 've been here a little 
while, you '11 see men staggering home at night, half 
slewed with rum, dressed in coarse homespun you would 
not give to an ostler, who are worth seventy or eighty 
thousand, and yet couldn't sign one of them his name. 
Those were fortunes made in the good old times. Ah ! 
those times are gone now ! " 

They were good old times of play at any rate, and of 
drinking too. These lusts in a new generation have 
sobered down, while we hold in common with the de- 
parted the third deep absorbing passion of our race. 
Had Colenso and Hugh Miller, while denying the pos- 
sibility of an universal deluge, admitted its force as 
applied to the human heart by the passions of love, 
hate, and jealousy, they would probably have been 
doubly right in their conclusions. 

It needs be so in our present story ; for it was known 
at that time that in a cottage at the foot of the hill, 
beyond the little bridge which spans the stream just 
before it joins the blue expanse of Quiddi Viddi, there 
peeped ever and anon at passers by from behind the 
crimson blinds the face of a gentle girl, for the love 
of whom the acquaintance of two men, which should 



The Last Duel in Newfoundland. 141 

have been almost that of brothers, grew into fierce 
jealousy, and on one side at last rottened into madden- 
ing hate. 

For it takes little enough for hate, once heated in the 
breast, to burst into the flame of destruction. So it 
happened that on a bright spring night, more than a 
generation back, a party of officers assembled in the 
messroom of the old Newfoundland Companies in Fort 
Townsend. There really was in those days something 
like a fort, with parapets well ditched, and a glacis 
stretching around, steep towards the town, and sloping 
gently on to the barrens beyond. The great cathedral, 
with the twin towers, which, like two fingers pointing 
towards heaven, can be seen for many miles around, was 
not then built: but the wooden barracks within the 
fort were just the same as now, the yellow wash not 
stratified quite so thickly on the walls, or the cracks 
and crevices admitting so much wind and snow. Among 
the group assembled to pass the evening in the usual 
way were a Captain Eodman and a Lieutenant Potter, 
the principals of this sad tale. Their names are slightly 
altered to avoid unnecessary pain to any surviving rela- 
tives even at this distance of time, and the outline of 
the story will be told much in the very words in which 
I have heard it narrated by men who were living wit- 
nesses of its principal details. 

The snow still lay thickly on the ground in gloomy 
corners where the sun's rays could not touch the surface, 
and the westerly wind of the chill April night whistling 
through the old Government buildings made the cheer- 



142 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

ful blaze of the crackling logs doubly agreeable to the 
knot of officers and their friends there assembled. In 
front of the fire was drawn out a barrack-table covered 
with an old red cloth, on which lay scattered, much in 
the form of a flight of wild geese in the evening sky, a 
greasy pack of cards, veterans in the service for which 
they were made. On one side, on another table, were 
all the "materials" for brewing whisky-punch, barring 
the lemon ; while several bottles of port, at eighteen 
shillings a-dozen in those days (now at fifty, and not 
so good), graced the tray as well. The kettle was put 
on to tune itself up, chairs were gathered round the red 
cloth, sixpences like silver gauntlets were flung into the 
centre, and the party set vigorously to work at a game 
of the real old Irish loo, first knave for dealer — the 
which game, provided it be played by gentlemen, has 
the merit of being the safest, liveliest, and most sociable 
in existence. A prudent player has control over his 
ventures and finances, so that it may be played without 
hazarding a penny on mere luck, and strictly without 
gambling. For a long time all went pleasantly and 
well, until, whether from the effects of the toddy, or a 
run of foolish ventures, combined with a naturally awk- 
ward temper, Lieutenant Potter grew gradually quarrel- 
some and unpleasant. He took up his three cards at a 
moment when the pool was large, and, replying to the 
dealer's question "Will you play?" with a loud "I 
will," dashed them back upon the table, with a chuckle 
clearly indicative of their value. This conduct, strictly 
contrary to the spirit of the game, induced the players 



The Last Duel in Newfoundland. 143 

to hold back, and to decline playing until Captain 
Rodman, the dealer, alone was left to declare. He 
looked at his cards ; they were bad ; and he hesitated to 
decide whether he would play, to risk forfeiting an equal 
sum to that in the pool, or give up the pool without a 
struggle. 

" Will you play, I say?" cried Potter fiercely. 

Rodman looked again at his cards, and then at the 
pool, in which there was quite a heap of shining silver, 
the accumulation of many undivided deals. For modest 
players the risk of putting in a similar sum was a con- 
sideration. 

" Will you play ? " cried Potter, with an oath, turn- 
ing to the other players. " This is not fair, I 'm d 

if it is." 

" Come, old fellow/' cried one, " be plucky, and de- 
fend the pool, for the sake of the table, you know." 

" G-ammon, Rodman ! " said another, " don't do any- 
thing of the sort ; better give the pool up. " 

"Last player always defends the pool," shouted a 
third ; when, amid a chorus of voices, who cried yea or 
nay to this last assertion — 

" I '11 play," said Rodman, at last, drawing rather a 
heavy breath, as he laid his cards quietly on the table, 
and said to Potter — 

" How many cards will you take ? " 

" One." He threw away the king of diamonds, and 
took in the ace of clubs. The ace of spades had turned 
up for the trump-card. Rodman rejected two of his 
cards, and took the two upper ones of the pack instead ; 






144 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

when instantly, amid impatient cries from the table, — 
'Now play away," "Two trumps lead one," "Loo 
him, Potter," " Play bold," — Potter, looking triumph- 
antly at his adversary, dashed the queen of trumps on 
the table. Kodman, who had taken in one good trump, 
capped it with the king ; led the nine of trumps, draw- 
ing the four from Potter ; then led the eight of diamonds, 
drawing the ace of clubs — and won the pool. 

"You're looed," "You're looed, Potter," cried the 
players, excitedly. "In with the pool." "Keckon it 
up." "Forty-eight shillings and sixpence." "You're 
looed ; who 'd a thought it ? deal away." 

" I 'm not looed. " I 'm d if I am ; he cheated," 

cried Potter, in a loud voice, clapping his hand on the 
pool. 

There was an universal burst of surprise. " Come, 
come, Potter ! don't be a fool, and spoil the fun." " Ke- 
tract what you said." " You 're looed quite fair." 

" I 'm d if I retract," cried he, violently, sweep- 
ing the pool towards his corner. " He did cheat. I '11 
swear to it. He drew the king from the pack. It was 
the bottom card. I saw it." 

A start of surprise thrilled plainly round the 
table. 

" You saw it, sir ! " said Captain Kodman, quietly ; 
" you said you saw it, and said nothing about it, yet 
now pretend that 1 have cheated ! " 

" Gammon ! " cried the player next to Potter. " You 
are wrong, I tell you — wrong altogether ; and making 
bad a confounded times worse. I saw the bottom card 



The Last Duel in Newfoundland. 145 

while he dealt ; it was the knave, not the king. Turn 
up the pack and look." 

As the speaker said, the bottom card was the knave 
of spades, which Potter had evidently mistaken for the 
king ; thus making his queen (as he thought) with 
the ace turned up the best card. It looked now very 
bad for Potter. Not only had he wrongly accused a 
player of cheating, but, by his own confession, had 
seriously compromised himself in the same light. With 
another man he might have retreated coarsely and fool- 
ishly enough out of the scrape ; but with Eodman his 
present feelings were intermingled with a far deeper 
sore, and blindly he determined to brave it out. 

"It's a lie! ad lie! I saw the king. He's 

cheated ; and d me if I give up the money/' 

" Do you really intend what you say, sir ? " said 
Rodman, rising. 

" Take that, and curse you into the bargain," shouted 
the excited idiot, dashing, as he spoke, the hot contents 
of his tumbler into the Captain's face. 

There was a general start from the table and a shout 
of disgust, while Rodman wiped the scalding liquid from 
his face. Reaching down his hat, he turned to quit the 
room, while Potter, barely restrained by two of the 
company, rushed forward and made an effort to kick 
him as he passed the door. Of course the party broke 
up in confusion, but before it separated a message 
arrived from Captain Rodman requesting Captain 
Withers at once to go to his quarters. All knew what 
that meant, and Potter, naming his own second, 

K 



146 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

snapped his fingers defiantly, and left for his own 
quarters. 

In those days an apology was a rare thing either to 
offer or accept. A duel, if not exactly a common, was 
certainly not a very uncommon, occurrence ; and was 
looked on by the community in general without that 
special abhorrence it now excites. This resulted partly 
from a less polished state of society, but more truly by 
the indifference caused by the general harmlessness of 
rencontres while flint-mounted weapons were in vogue. 
Detonators and revolvers at twelve paces have been the 
real pacificators or purifiers of society, at least on our 
side of the herring-pond. Still, among the better classes 
in Newfoundland, as elsewhere, at that time a strong 
feeling against such barbarities lay dormant, requiring 
only a stirring tragedy to call its life into action. It 
came to their expectations, as we shall see. 

Kodman, who was writing when Captain Withers 
arrived to his summons, looked up, and said — 

"There's an end to all cards for me, Withers. If 
men cannot play except as brutes and beasts 1 11 have 1 
nothing more to do with it." 

" Always knew what a cussed temper that fellow had ; 
but this is quite beyond all bounds." 

" Ah ! it's not the cards; there's something besides, 
that at the bottom of his conduct, which makes me 
particularly anxious to avoid anything public. Perhaps^ 
the fool will come to his senses in the morning, and if 
he will write an apology, which can be read before the 
party, I 'd better look it over. But " 



The Last Duel in Newfoundland. ] 47 

" Apology ! Well, of course you can do as you please; 
but when it appears to me a man has been first grossly 
insulted, and then kicked, it's rather late for — eh? — 
apology, eh ? " 

" Kicked ! " shouted Kodman, starting from his chair. 
" You mistake, sir ; he never kicked me ! " 

" Very true ; he just missed you with his foot because 
we held him back as you left the door. But, ma foi, 
it 's the same thing, mon cher. Que voulez-vous ? " 

Poor Rodman sat down again, passing his hand 
heavily across his forehead. " You are right," he said 
at last, "it's the same thing; we must go out, that's 
clear ; yet I would have avoided it if I could, but 
it 's too much, too much. It will be better that you, 
Withers, being in the regiment, should not act. Ask 
Strachan|to arrange it for me as early as you can to- 
morrow; and now, good-night. I have some affairs 
to settle." 

Somewhere about a mile from the post-office of St 
John's, behind the high hill above the town on which 
the Catholic cathedral proudly stands, there winds a 
deep, sheltered ravine, through which, by dells and 
fields and gardens, a joyous, chattering streamlet pours 
its bright waters into the lake beyond, — now over rough 
rocks, which crest its course with mimic waterfalls and 
snowy flakes of foam, — now gliding swiftly into the little 
weir to turn the merry-humming mill-wheel, — now eddy- 
ing over stone and pebble, until the air is musical with 
soothing sound, — past copse, and wild, and moor, and 
under many a little rickety bridge, where boys and trout 



148 ( Lost Amid the Fogs. 

play hide-and-seek for hours together on the warm spring 
days, — then sweeping boldly into the broad meadow, to 
puzzle the cows with its many curves and folds, until its 
throbbings, like the heart of the human life, to which it 
has so often been compared, cease, in mingling with the 
great unknown level beyond. It would almost seem as 
if the deep, hill -girdled cup of Quiddi-Viddi (Qui- 
Divida) — for so the early Spanish settlers, taking this 
as the boundary, named the bright-blue lakelet — was 
so fashioned expressly by the hand of Nature, to collect 
together for the city the delicious rills bounding off the 
mountain's side at every point ; to save them from run- 
ning to waste too quickly in the briny, unsympathising 
ocean, through the wild fissure cleft in the rocks on the 
shore, past which the overflowing of the water rushes. 
Winding serpent-like among the meadows, across the 
slope of the hill, down to one of the bridges, and wind- 
ing again up the opposite bank, on which to this very 
day a few scattered wind-blown pines stand sentinel 
over the landscape, we come to a little hollow, 
smoothly turfed, and screened from observation by 
copse and stream on one side, by cliff and hill upon the 
other. It was just the place, of all others about the 
town, where the tender buds of the wild azaleas and 
calmias, protected from the biting north-easterly winds, 
peeped at first shyly, 1md then pleaded for life with the 
golden sun above/ Just such a morning as this of which 
we write, — a morning fragrant with loving answer from 
the King above, glorious with resurrection, restoration, 
beauty, life, and health, — a morning for sick creatures 



The Last Duel in Newfoundland. 149 

to throw open casements long sealed by winter's frost, 
and expand their lungs to the full with the soft southerly 
breeze, — a morning for lovers to walk with linked arms 
through the shady fir-groves, carpeted with the dead 
leaves of a hundred summers ; for children to run wild 
with joy about the sprouting meadows ; for old folks to 
stand and dream lazily over the misty memories of many 
such bygone delights ; but not a morning, of all morn- 
ings, for two men, brothers professionally as well, to 
stand opposite each other with deadly thoughts of blood 
and murder. Yet so it was that here, concealed from 
all but the eye of Heaven, stood quiet and calm Cap- 
tain Kodman on one hand, placed with his back to the 
sun by his second, Dr Strachan ; and, on the other, 
Lieutenant Potter, still highly excited, and with an eye 
gleaming bitter enmity on his opponent. Potter was 
attended by the commander of a small man-of-war 
yacht, and was placed right opposite the full blaze of 
the sun. 

Very coolly and pleasantly did the less -interested 
functionaries perform their part of the proceedings. 
With an amicable nod Dr Strachan placed the pistols 
behind his back, and having handed to Captain Fisher 
the one selected, they proceeded to place the weapons in 
the hands of the principals. 

" I tell you again, Kodman," cried the Doctor, in a 
] mrried whisper, " you have but one chance for your 
life : fire quick. He is a dead shot, they say, and looks 
hell at you. If he miss you once, he may not a second 
time." 



150 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

" I will not fire at him," said Kodman ; " he is a 
widow's son. I desire only to satisfy my own honour." 

" You are a madman, then." 

"Are you ready, gentlemen?" sang out the clear 
tones of Captain Fisher ; " very good. I will say one, 
two, three ; and when I drop my handkerchief — fire." 

Covering his man most carefully, at the instant the 
words were spoken, Potter fired and missed. His ball 
just grazed the collar of Captain Hodman's coat, when 
the latter raised his weapon and fired in the air. 

"Load again, I say! — load again!" cried Potter, 
with the voice of a baffled demon. " I '11 shoot " 

" No, no, sir ! that is not for you to decide. Fisher, 
I think this matter ought now to be arranged." 

"Certainly," said Captain Fisher; "I see no reason 
why it should not be. My principal will leave " 

" I insist upon having another shot ! I will not settle 
it ! " shouted Potter, with an oath. " He called me 
here ; not I him. I say I have a right to as many shots 
as I please." 

Dr Strachan approached Captain Kodman, and said — 

" What shall I do ? The man is beside himself. Are 
you satisfied on your part ? " 

" Yes, I am. I don't want to injure him. I was 
obliged to call, him out, you can tell him, to vindicate 
my own honour, but I shall now be glad to drop it." 

" He called me out, I repeat," shouted the angry 
man, lashing himself into fury at the hesitation ; " and 

T have a right to my turn. Why the h don't you 

load the pistols." 



The Last Duel in Newfoundland. 151 

The seconds consulted again. " I fear/' said Captain 
Fisher, " we must give in to his argument, eh ? " 

" Is it of no use ? My principal was obliged to call 
him out, and has fired in the air. Surely that ought to 
satisfy him." 

" You see the state he is in. We cannot deny his 
argument. I fear we must load." 

So the fatal weapons were placed again in the hands 
of the combatants with the same precautionary notice, 
while Strachan whispered hurriedly to Kodman, " I tell 
you, unless you wing him first, you are a dead man." 
In less than a quarter of a minute the signal was given, 
and at that instant Potter sprang at least his own height 
into the air, discharging his own pistol wildly as he 
rose. Shot right through the heart, he fell back upon 
the young spring turf without a word or gasp — dead — 
dead. 

" He would have it," said Fisher. " God help him, 
poor fellow ! Is he really gone, Doctor ? " 

<c Gone ! " said Strachan. " Gone ! not a doubt of 
it. Heart shot right through, I suppose. How terrible ! 
I acquit you Kodman ; I do, from my soul. You fired 
this time to save your own life. We must think o 
ourselves now. Heavens ! " he sighed, while wiping the 
frothy lips of the dead man, and looking upward at the 
soft blue sky, " What a morning for such work as 
this ! ■ 

" Cover him with your cloak, Strachan," said Captain 
Fisher, " and let us gain time to conceal ourselves. I 
will let them know at Fort Townsend that there has 



152 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

been an accident, and they will send out a party, no 
doubt. How ghastly it looks ! they will soon see that 
dark blotch on the grass. Now, begone. You know 
where to." 

Strachan nodded, and passing his arm through that 
of Captain Kodinan, hurried off the ground. Honour 
or no honour, now, when too late, what would he not 
have given to have undone the work of the last hour ? 

In less than an hour a party of soldiers might have 
been seen swarming over the wooden bridge at the head 
of the valley, and scattering in all directions over the 
grassy meadow which leads towards the sentinel pines 
on the crest of the opposite hill. In a few minutes a 
loud shout proclaimed their search successful, and they 
were soon seen carrying gently along the body of the 
miserable man who had just paid so terrible a penalty 
for passion and folly. As they passed up the slope 
towards the fort, numbers of people swelled the proces- 
sion, and curses were loudly heaped on Kodman's head, 
the more when it was known that he had been the chal- 
lenger. Most likely had he merely winged the dead 
man, or had the duel resulted harmlessly, there would 
scarcely have been a talk about it. But because the 
bullet had gone an inch or two out of the ordinary line, 
and struck a vital part (as if such a contingency in 
duelling had been quite lost sight of), the popular feel- 
ing in favour of the victim bubbled up and boiled over. 
It was on this account well that, for the first day or 
two, Captain Eodman remained cache; but it was 
known before the end of the week, that, partly miserable 



The Last Duel in Newfoundland. 153 

with his own thoughts in solitude, and partly on account 
of hearing that Dr Strachan had been arrested, he had 
surrendered himself voluntarily into the hands of 
justice. 

There was yet another spectacle, the most solemn of 
all, to be beheld before the tide of feeling turned, and 
the truth began to be better understood. Three days 
after the duel, a vast crowd had assembled before the 
gates of Fort Townsend, between which, heralded by 
the muffled drums and the reverberations of the dead 
march, were seen issuing the remains of the young 
officer prematurely dead. As the slow procession filed 
down the steep slope of Garrison Hill, it was joined at 
each corner of the streets by many hundreds of all 
classes ; until, in the old churchyard in front of the 
rectory, where now stands the English Cathedral, were 
collected a great part of the population of St John's, 
to witness the ceremony which deposited the dust, of 
what was hearty life and health among them three days 
before, to mingle with its kindred dust. The poor fel- 
low whose remains were there laid in earth had friends, 
of course, among this motley crowd ; but it was mainly 
the universal horror which had arisen in all hearts, 
aided by the reverberating volleys of musketry, re-echo- 
ing on the spot into each palpitating heart the cause of 
death — sudden uncompromising death — which rilled 
each living listener with dread, and did much to put a 
veto on all such future deeds in this colony. The early 
grave was filled in, the last covering socl placed over, 
the last toll of the melancholy knell struck on the 



154 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

wounded ear ; the crowd duly scattered, each to his 
tent, with words of grief and pity ; and then, as usual, 
the other side of the story began to circulate, and a 
feeling of sympathy and pity to react in favour of the 
survivor of the wretched drama. 

But though the good folk of Fish-and-fog-land soon 
began to reason fairly enough, yet the causes which in- 
fluenced the ebbing tide of popular opinion to run swift 
as a mill-course in favour of the prisoners, were due to 
the extraordinary indiscretion of one of the great autho- 
rities of the community. Captain Kodman and his 
seconds were duly committed to take their trials for the 
crime of wilful murder, and although nothing could be 
fairer than this trial so far as the prosecution under the 
crown was concerned, luckily, as it resulted for the 
prisoners, though very much the reverse for the dignity 
of justice, the presiding judge threw the enormous 
weight of his own personal feeling and bias into the 
scale against them. The sifted detail of the circum- 
stances which led to the violent sudden death of the 
young officer, left a favourable impression on the minds 
of the listeners towards the prisoners at the bar ; yet, to 
the great surprise of the public, the judge summed up 
with extreme virulence against them ; and after charg- 
ing the jury and bidding them retire to consider their 
verdict, he was observed, even by them, conspicuously 
to turn down the pages of the great book which recorded 
the last read sentence of the law, and to index the 
place, ready to pronounce from it the awful form as 
there prescribed. It need hardly be said that the 






The Last Duel in Newfoundland. 155 

court-house of St John's was crammed to suffocation, 
while its doors and walls outside were besieged by hun- 
dreds unable to enter. The serious nature of the crime, 
the possible consequences which might result, the well- 
known bitterness of the judge, and the rank of the 
accused, raised an unaccustomed interest within those 
walls, where bright echo itself, for weary years, had 
grown dull in catching monotonous pleadings to prove 
that salmon and herring are not " fish" in the eye of 
the law, on a wrangle over a broken head, a violated 
contract, or the robbery of a cabbage-garden. Still the 
glad spring sun, dyeing the long winclows with his 
golden flood, sunk lower and lower in the west, while 
the door of the jury-room yet remained closed and 
guarded. But for the charging of the judge after the 
evidence, no doubt existed as to what the verdict would 
have been, for until that moment the jurymen, honest, 
plain, unsophisticated planters, wore their opinions 
plainly in their faces ; but their continued absence 
proved the counter influence sprung up, and who could 
foresee the result ? At length — ah ! what a thrill it 
sent through the beating hearts of the spectators, and 
made the hot faces of the prisoners in the dock blanch 
with sudden dread — the tinkle of a little bell is heard, 
and then one by one the jurymen filed into court. 
Solemnly rose the clerk, and cried with a loud voice — 
no need for that, for the chirp of a canary would have 
sounded like an organ — 

" Gentlemen of the jury, are you agreed as to your 
verdict?" 



156 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

"We are." 

" How say you then ? Are the prisoners at the bar 
guilty or not guilty ? " 

11 Guilty — but without malice." 

Down came the large, bony hand of the judge upon 
the desk, making its very framework quiver under the 
blow, while his stiff wig trembled with the agitation 
bubbling beneath, as his long form dilated up and up. 

" What verdict is that?" cried he, stedfastly eyeing 
the abashed foreman ; " what verdict is that, I say, sir, 
you ask me to record? Who desired you to give an 
opinion other than guilty or not guilty? Did you 
listen to my charge, wherein I clearly laid down what 
shooting a man in cold blood was ? Go back to your 
room, and find a verdict in accordance with the law 
which you have heard expounded, or 1 : 11 keep you there 
until you do." And the book with the fatal mark, 
which had been opened for business, was again closed, 
still duly indexed. 

Then rose the counsel for the prisoners, a long-headed, 
clever man — (what a thing that is to have on watch 
at such a crisis of life or death) ! — and looking at the 
angry judge, while the jury paused, half angrily, half 
doubtfully, and all ears were strained to catch his words, 
said — 

" My Lord, I beg your Lordship's pardon, but I must 
ask " 

" Well, sir— what— what is it ? " 

" I must ask, my Lord, that you will be pleased to 
record the verdict just given by the jury." 



The Last Duel in Newfoundland. 157 

" Record it, sir I Certainly not. It is no verdict at 
all. I have refused it." 

" I beg your Lordship's pardon, but I must maintain 
that it is a verdict ; and that a verdict of guilty without 
malice is a verdict of not guilty of murder, which needs 
malice or aforethought. It is not possible for the jury 
to bring in a verdict of guilty now." 

11 To your room instantly, gentlemen," cried again the 
enraged judge, turning round to the jurymen lingering 
on the threshold. " Retire instantly, and reconsider 
your verdict according to the law I have laid down." 

" Very well, my Lord ; but I must respectfully enter 
my protest against your Lordship's decision for future 
argument." 

It was never needed that future discussion. Happily 
the lingering jury had caught the argument of the 
counsel, and in less than ten minutes the tinkle of the 
bell was again heard. 

"Are you now agreed, gentlemen," solemnly spoke 
the clerk. 

" We are," replied the foreman, boldly and loudly. 

"How say you now? Are the prisoners at the bar 
guilty or not guilty ? " 

a Not guilty." The words were scarce out of his 
mouth when a burst of applause, like the rush of a 
sliding avalanche, rent the court-house, and the 
vibrating waves of stormy sound ruffled the very wig 
of the judge as they tore confusedly along. Heavily 
came down the hand once more on the desk, as with a 
voice of thunder he roared— 



158 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

"I'll commit the first — clerk of the court — silence 
— disgraceful — insult to justice — commit " 

He might as well have roared to the winds of heaven. 
Leaping over the barriers, throwing open the doors, 
pushing aside the keepers and constables, the multitude 
rushed pell-mell into the dock, and lifting Kodman and 
the other prisoners on their shoulders, bore them 
triumphantly along to receive an ovation from the 
crowd outside. Then arose a yell of ringing acclama- 
tions, seldom heard save from lusty British throats, the 
roar of which might almost have caused the bones of 
the dead man, lying not far off, to rustle and shiver in 
their bed. They carried Eodman up Garrison Hill, 
back to his barracks in Fort Townsend, in triumphant 
procession; and that night St John's celebrated the 
stirring events of the trial and the escape of the 
prisoners in full libations of rum-punch or whisky- 
toddy. Alack ! for the applause, for the discernment of 
mobs, for the certainty of human. discretion or wisdom! 
Had the judge been a temperate, or even a cunning 
man, the prisoners, at the moment the people were 
toasting them to the skies, might have been under 
sentence of death in prison, or, at least, condemned to 
heavy bonds and miserable servitude for many years 
of life. 

Better as it was, for the punishment (if any were 
needed) of the soul was harder yet to bear, and followed 
quickly enough. The doctor died of consumption within 
a year, the disease probably accelerated by the sharp 
ordeal he had undergone. Rodman became a drooping 



The Last Duel in Newfoundland. 159 

spirit, and soon after left the Old Koyal Companies. 
All that is really known of him is the fact, that his first 
act on reaching England was to seek out the mother 
of his unfortunate adversary, and make a provision for 
her necessities from his own slender income. It is not 
difficult to imagine what -must have been the tender 
and acute feelings of a man who could act in this way, 
in reflecting upon that miserable passage of a half- 
wasted life. 

This is the pith of a sad tale of Newfoundland ; one 
of its few traditionary stories, well-nigh forgotten, save 
by a few of the older residents of St John's. For many 
years after it occurred the road running across the 
stream was avoided after nightfall. For, at a point 
close to the wooden bridge, where a latticed cottage 
once stood, and where it was said Kodman's horse 
shied three times on his way to the duel, and refused 
resolutely to go on, the restless ghost of the dead soldier 
was said to flit about, with one single blood-red spot 
upon his breast, which superstition said was shaped 
like the ace of hearts. But now the memory of that 
sepulchral tale has likewise vanished, and the latticed 
cottage, the abode of much love-begotten sorrow, is 
gone too. All down the road other pretty cottages 
here and there have started up, fronted by little 
gardens, in summer redolent of flowers, and bordered 
by meadows, where the mowers in the hot August days 
reap and turn the long bending grass. Yet ever and 
anon, as some ancient white-bearded resident of the 
place saunters slowly along the pleasant road with wife or 



160 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

grandchildren in a Sabbath evening stroll, he will point 
to the pines still standing guard on the hill top, and 
say, u Yes, do you remember, dear, that is the very 
spot where the young officer was shot." And the glad 
rivulet leaps along close by merrily as ever, tempting the 
children to run from the old man's side and dip their 
feet in its laughing waters ; and raising, all the winding 
way between the heights of Three Pond Barrens and 
the blue lake near the sea, misty ghosts of its own for 
the fresh winds of ocean to chase away each morning. 
It says — oh ! how plainly — to the saunterers on its 
banks, " For men may come, and men may go, but 

I " Ah ! plaintive little river ! would indeed the 

" for ever " of the poet's boast were true even for thee. 
But surely, as the purity of thy sparkling waters were 
once blood-stained and dishonoured, so surely must the 
change, common to all things of earth, touch even thy 
rocky bed and flowering banks at last. 





CHAPTER XL 



THE ANGLICAN BRANCH OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. 




HO is that ? " remarked the author of these 
humble sketches to his friend Nathaniel, 
as they strolled together through the by- 
streets of the city of St John's. Nathaniel, 
on passing by the entrance of a narrow dirty lane, had 
lifted his hat with much respect to a gentleman coming 
out of a poverty-stricken cottage. The stranger wore 
the look of a man of some sixty years, and was dressed 
with scrupulous care, in black greatcoat, gaiters, and 
broad-brimmed hat. He returned my friend's salute 
most courteously, and began picking his way across the 
muck and slush of an April thaw to another cottage 
opposite. Then, as we lost sight of him, my friend 
Nathaniel stretched out his honest broad hand, and 
cried — 

" My, my ! I protest ! and you not to know ! Well, 
well ! Why, that 's the Bishop ! " 

" The Bishop ! " I muttered, aghast ; for my thoughts 
reverted naturally to the proud towers on Cathedral 
Hill. 



162 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

" Yes! the Bishop — the Bishop of Newfoundland — 
our Bishop. He arrived from Bermuda in the last 
packet. You '11 soon know him ; and when you do, 
you '11 never have known a better man." 

The Bishop ! I saw it all now. There are Avons 
and Avons in England, and there are bishops and 
bishops in Fish-and-fog-land. Only a few evenings 
back Wolfe and I, returning from our evening stroll 
through Water Street, heard the broker's wife say, amid 
a gush of greetings, to the banker's: "Yes, my dear; 
William 's just seen his Lordship, and says he 's looking 
very well indeed." And again, that same evening, just 
as we reached Wolfe's house, from an opposite gate there 
rushed out upon us tumultuously a group of rosy-cheeked, 
cruciferous young ladies, who, flushed with some excit- 
ing news, all cried together — 

"Oh, it's so nice! Have you heard the Bishop ? s 
,. 

No ! stupid staid old fogies that we were, we actually 
had not heard the Bishop was come, and of course re- 
ceived the amount of contempt from the flashing eyes 
we merited. 

But there were other sources from which the evidence 
of his Lordship's popularity among the fair rapidly ac- 
cumulated. Presiding over the destinies of the pretty 
little farm on the bank of the lake close by, was a worthy 
woman named Joslyn — her real name ; for, as all that 
has ever been known of her is honest, true, and good, I 
can see no reason for concealing her identity. Her hus- 
band, a sterling Devonshire yeoman, was there as well ; 



The Anglican Branch of the Catholic Church. 163 

but, to all practical intents and purposes, was really 
nowhere. Mrs Joss w T as gray mare ; and a better never 
stepped. It was she who received her visitors, arranged 
the picnics, secured the band, sold the poultry and early 
vegetables (no such to be procured elsewhere), took the 
butter and clotted cream from house to house, scolded 
the maids, made the pies and pastry for the evening- 
parties, and kept the neighbourhood alive with the rapid 
yet cheery clapper of a marvellous power of tongue. It 
was always a treat to visit the farm-house at the end of 
our evening stroll — sure of finding, on entering the 
pretty hop-clustered porch, the cheerful housewife ready 
with a cup of tea, redolent of knotty cream, and a hearty 
welcome, whicn was even the better entertainment of 
two such good things. On such an occasion as this — 
one of many — we were sitting round her kitchen- table, 
while the goodwife was cutting into a home-made loaf, 
and offering slices of it spread with the freshest butter 
such as there was no refusing, when some one said: 
" Ah, Mrs Joslyn ! no fresh butter for us this last 
month — not a pat ! Now the Bishop 's come, it all 
goes there, no doubt ! " 

" Oh, sir ! Well, I 'm sure ! to think of that ! — and 
the cows, poor things ! fed on turnips and hay, will not 
give the milk ; and how can I supply customers if I 
can't get the milk ? But the Bishop, sir ! — no, sir ; 
not a bit of fresh butter does his Lordship have of me, 
nor from no one else, I 'm sure. He wouldn't afford it, 
sir, wouldn't his Lordship — to spend it on hisself, that 
is. There 's Mrs J have a pat of fresh butter every 






1G4 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

Wednesday, and she have his Lordship to tea reg'lar ; 

and Mrs M , she have his Lordship to tea of a Friday 

reg'lar, and reg'lar has a pat of fresh butter, too ; and 
I 'm particklar in seeing it is fresh, I do assure you, sir. 
And Joss, he likes a bit of fresh now and then, when I 
can spare it, he does. But the Bishop, sir ! — he take 
fresh butter at such a price for his own self ! Oh, no, 
sir ; never — not now, sir ! He 's got a plenty of good 
uses for his money ; and if all bishops was like him, 

sir . And will you please take another cup o' tea, 

gentlemen? there's a plenty in the pot, and welcome." 

Thus, as it flitted across my foggy thoughts that 
there must be something uncommon about a man who 
thus commanded the admiration and respect of sober 
folks, and impassioned girlhood alike, my friend Natha- 
niel, stopping before a long oblong stone edifice, said — 

" How glad the Bishop must be to be again in his 
own church, for you know he built this cathedral ! " 

" He was not fortunate in the site, at any rate." 

" No ! Why ? what ? eh ! I protest ! what do you 
find fault with?" 

" Simply that if you put a long building aligning 
the contour of a steep slope, it must look lopsided and 
ungainly. Then, you see, the front, which is good, does 
not face the harbour, — very unlike the plan adopted by 
the clever Komans, towering above us. Now, I am 
sure that any stranger entering the Narrows, and taking 
that long, blank, buttressed wall for a military store- 
house, might be forgiven, eh ? " 

" My ! my ! ,; said my friend, every hair on his head 



Tlie Anglican Branch of the Catholic Church. 165 

bristling with honest indignation. " I protest, if his 
Lordship heard you, I wouldn't be you. But come, 
there's the verger just unlocking the doors for even- 
ing-service ; let us go inside and see what you say to 
that." 

We entered the sacred portals, and as we passed 
down the long aisle towards the altar, the echo of our 
steps reverberated gently and solemnly through the 
empty house of worship. The sober fittings, the open 
pews with their plain dark oak carvings, the long and 
elegant lancelets of the west window, the soft dreamy 
light, chequered and filtered by tall stone columns on 
either side of the aisle ; each in its own appropriateness 
redeemed in a great measure the error of the exterior 
site. But it was when we stood before the altar that 
my good friend's ire again rose high. There was no 
east window. The walls of the concave, holding the 
communion-table, were painted blue and bedabbled 
with 1 golden stars ; while uncouth texts, scrolled and 
garnished round the cornices, tormented the weary eyes 
with undecipherable scarlet letters. 

As I spoke no word of admiration, Nathaniel laid 
his hand impressively on my shoulder, and whispered 
sepulchrally, as no doubt was becoming — 

" Not yet finished, you see. The funds ran out, and 
the Bishop • " 

11 Shut out the light and illuminated the place him- 
self. Do you think he has succeeded ? " 

At which rebellious speech the good fellow cast his 
hand above his head, and crying, " Well now, I protest, 



166 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

I will not hear another word," marched straight out of 
the cathedral. 

I did not wonder at his vehemence, for I knew he 
loved his friend. In truth, it was not long before I 
found the good Bishop was either loved or respected by 
the whole community. Of love, what can one say? 
The thing is like the Chian wine of old, flavoured to 
him who drinks it. But for this, too, and all else 
besides, the secret simply lay in a conviction now 
rooted firmly, but long time struggling for growth in 
a rocky ungenial soil, that in striving after the glory of 
his Master and the good of his fellows, the man had 
forgotten his own self and his own pleasure. He had 
in as much as he could obeyed that Divine yet hard 
command, to forsake his own house, his own comforts, 
his own belongings, to follow, amid much opportunity 
for the dazzling things of earth, a self-denying path- 
way. That path men saw that he kept straight towards 
his end, doing the allotted work along its narrow sides 
nobly, honestly, to all ; without fear or affection undue 
to any. It was said of him that he had engaged in the 
labour not willingly ; but that, having accepted it, he 
took up the burden and heat of the day at once, calling 
on and expecting others in his vineyard to do likewise ; 
and though men often complained that he was a hard 
uncompromising ruler, yet no one ever cried that he 
was unjust. It was, in truth, not difficult to imagine 
that he was stern in business matters ; nor to under- 
stand, on looking at those clear deep- set eyes, at the 
small compressed lips, and at the firm expression 



The Anglican Branch of the Catholic Church. 167 

reflective of the cast of the inner man, how that a 
resolution once formed was rarely set aside. " He's a 
man of cast iron ; you might as well try to bend a 
crowbar," his clergy cried in the streets of him in 
former days. True enough, when he felt himself in 
the right, though they thought not : and yet the time 
came to him and to them, when they at length knew 
this iron man had a heart, in which the seeds of love, 
and peace, and goodwill to men, daily brought forth the 
fruits of a true and holy life. 

For long before the Bishop came to Fish-and-fog- 
land, he in the great battle of life had, greatly rejoicing, 
cast his lot in a pleasant place. It is possible that no 
two people on earth, if suddenly asked to choose the 
happiest position which man could occupy in this vale 
of tears, could agree together. It is not easy to fix 
exactly the point where, safely removed from biting- 
poverty, the cares of riches cease to clog, and cause it 
to be said that it may be hard for such and such a 
man to enter the kingdom. Some would place their 
faith in chariots and horses, some in the contentment of 
the little cottage beneath the hill. The range of choice, 
with thousands of intervening desires and opportunities, 
may be vast indeed. Yet, if it were suggested to many 
a puzzled thinker, that the happy medium might lie in 
the life of a country rector in the heart of merrie Eng- 
land ; that the smoke of that English parsonage might 
be seen for miles in such a vale as where the soft Wye 
winds in crimson reaches toward the western Severn, 
where Pope called on his honest muse to rise and sing 



168 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

the " Man of Ross ; " there to serve God in making 
others love His Name ; there to live apart from the 
jars, the dirt, the tumult of cities; — many, indeed, 
might cry, " Yes, there ; there it is ; thus and thus 
we would choose to live." Even so, men said, had it 
been with our Bishop ; nor did they wonder, when first 
it was proposed to him to give up that happy path- 
way, to quit for ever his apple-blossomed river, to 
root up all his tender plants, to go and dwell in Fish- 
and-fog-land, even as " Lord Bishop," yet amid the 
dreary barrenness of some earthly, and nearly all spiri- 
tual things, he should have gently, yet truly, pleaded 
the nolo Episcojwri. But, happily for the snow-land 
across the Atlantic, the matter was pressed on him by 
those who knew the worth of the man, until perhaps he 
may have looked at it as a call to go and do His work ; 
or, in the noble language of Archbishop Trench, when 
writing to a friend entering the ministry — 

" Oh ! let us not this thought allow — 
The heat, the dust upon our brow, 

Signs of the contest, we may wear ; 
But thus we shall appear more fair 

To our Almighty Master's eye, 
Than if in fear to lose the bloom, 
Or ruffle the soul's lightest plume, 

We from the strife should fly." 

Thus it came to pass that a quarter of a century ago 
there landed on these shores a man destined to exercise 
a vast future influence in the spread of Christianity 
among the flocks who, scattered widely in bays, villages, 






The Anglican Branch of the Catholic Church. 169 

settlements, and coves, for hundreds of miles round the 
coast, found henceforth a central pivot in his ceaseless 
labours at the capital. Yet, for all that, the new' 
Bishop's commencement with his people was not au- 
spicious. Long before his arrival rumour had bespoken 
his worth and zeal ; and the Protestant body, at the 
annual meeting of the Bible Society, voted that the 
vacant place of President should be reserved for him. 
Soon after landing, he was, of course, duly made ac- 
quainted with the proposed compliment, if that, indeed, 
be the proper term ; but, to the great mortification and 
surprise of the Protestant community, he, after reflec- 
tion, declined it. Of course it is well known that the 
Bible Society is not exclusively the organ of the Church 
of England, but embraces in its fold all Protestant 
sects, who here meet annually on common ground, and 
cast aside their minor prejudices in the general acknow- 
ledgment and absorption of the one great truth. But 
the Bishop declined its leadership, and it fell like an 
unexpected knell on the hearts of a community who 
had already a desperate outward struggle for the mas- 
tery with the vast majority of their Papist fellow- 
townsmen. Men lamented loudly that the new Bishop, 
even if consistent to his own views, had made here a 
terrible mistake; for they cried for unity as regards 
religion, the more so indeed as unhappily, by party 
strife, their religious and political positions could not 
be separated. With unity, and a conciliation of their 
dissenting brethren, amounting only to a meeting of 
Christian men once a year on the same platform for 



170 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

the support of their common standard, much might 
have been done ; great, they said, might have been the 
influence of a man of the stamp and character of the 
Bishop among the pastors of the closely allied flocks. 
It is not for us to judge the motives of such a man, 
even though we regret that decision ; and regret the 
more from noticing that from that moment his path 
of duty, always difficult enough, became vastly more 
thorny from the suspicions excited among the Low 
Church section of his own flock. In truth, the battle- 
flag of revolt was raised soon after ; and there was but 
little the Bishop said or did but what was scanned and 
criticised, often unfairly enough. That battle, long 
contested, is happily now over; the victory remains 
with the Bishop, but the wounds in some spots can 
never entirely close. For many years he was distrusted 
by a large section of Protestants ; but as they rolled on 
he won, by his uprightness, modesty, and piety, at least 
the esteem of all classes ; for against such things men 
found that there was no law, no cavilling. Yet that the 
controversy ran high, and waxed sore, may be remem- 
bered from the fact that on one occasion it unshipped a 
Governor who unwisely, in all senses of the word, 
measured his official strength with the Church ; and 
that, as was said before, it left scars deep and scarcely 
to be healed, may be understood by reading the follow- 
ing lines from the pen of one of the highest officials 
of the Government, a gentleman now holding a high 
appointment elsewhere, and who perhaps deeply regrets 
the day when he ordered his publisher to disseminate 



The Anglican Branch of the Catholic Church. 171 

through Fish-and-fog-land the pink pamphlet full of 
language of which one specimen will suffice us. 

11 But I had almost forgotten that your Lordship, 
with a degree of affectionate bitterness (for which, if I 
seem feebly to reciprocate it, I trust your Lordship 
will grant me absolution), has invited me 'kindly to 
suggest a rule' for ' your guidance,' which 'less savours 
of party,' and 'you will consider it.' I know I ought 
not in common courtesy to decline the invitation ; and I 
could suggest a rule which, had your Lordship adopted 
and acted on heretofore, would eminently have tended 
to the prevention of party and division among us. But 
as I fear it is hopeless to expect your Lordship ever to 
restrain your feelings, or distrust your judgment, when 
under the influence of a temptation which so frequently 
assails your Lordship, I forbear." 

Now, when it is stated that this letter was circulated 
because a sermon in one of the churches was preached in 
a white instead of in a black gown, and that, moreover, 
the Bishop had written to the heated official, protesting 
" that the surplice had not been used, and ought not 
to be regarded as the badge of any party in this diocese, 
and that he desired to set his own conduct above the 
suspicion of any party views or purpose," it will be 
admitted that the Episcopal lines had not fallen in 
pleasant places ; and that he fairly might (had he been 
of that stuff) have looked back with regret to the 
sunny banks of Avon, after putting his hand to the 
plough on this ungrateful soil. Miserable as has been 
the strife between the two great sections of the English 



172 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

Church during the last twenty years, our present 
question is, How does her mission succeed here ? What 
fruit does the little colonial offshoot of the great parent 
vine produce ? We look for grapes ; but, alas ! we shall 
find little but wild grapes, yet these in a garden which 
certainly yields to no place on earth for the heat and 
fervour of its religious zeal. There is a test, however, 
by which we may judge of the result of the Church's 
influence fairly enough, — the state of the funds of the 
Church Society of the community. This body was 
promoted by the Bishop mainly for the purpose of 
receiving the collected subscriptions of the flock all 
through Fish-and-fog-land, in order that from these 
funds, independently of building churches and schools 
throughout the diocese, the stipends of the clergy might 
be regularly met. Anterior to the formation of the 
society each clergyman collected among his flock what 
he could for himself; being, therefore, entirely de- 
pendent on their goodwill (in addition to the little 
assistance yielded by the S. P. G) ; a fact productive 
of evil and inconvenience where God's Word required 
the whole truth to be fearlessly spoken. If influence, 
personal and affectionate, could have worked success 
for the society ; if example of piety and self-denial had 
their due use and effect ; if a light which could not but 
be set on a hill could have illumined the darkness of 
men s charities, then the whole tenor of the good Bishops 
life should have filled the coffers of the society to over- 
flowing. Yet year by year the Bishop has to go down 
to the annual meeting, and sorrowfully announce the 






The Anglican Branch of the Catholic Church. 173 

amount of the subscriptions, in a place where the ex- 
ports and imports of commerce amount to more than 
three millions (the greater part of which is in the hands 
of Protestants) , to be something over or under £800 ! 
dividing some £40 or £50 a-year among a number of 
half-starved clergymen, God save the mark ! and leaving 
a pitiful balance in his hands for churches and parson- 
ages. It is a dreadful contrast to the princely revenues 
of the other great Bishop on the hill, computed at about 
£20,000 a-year. Yet it is not that the men of New- 
foundland are misers ; far from it. It arises, independ- 
ently in a certain degree from the bad fisheries, from 
the fact that the services of the Church of England, 
unsuited to the wants of this generation in a large 
measure, and especially to the case of the poor, have 
no longer that hold on the people as to impress them 
with the necessity for, or value of her ministrations. 
This is not the place to discuss the reasons why ; but 
the fact remains, that miserable are the pittances which 
the rectors and curates of the parishes of Newfoundland, 
chiefly lying along the extended coast line, enjoy. The 
word is not used ironically — heaven forbid ! Enough to 
keep body and soul together, on the coarsest food and 
with the humblest raiment, is in most cases their lot in 
this world. Yet, in the faces of all the men I saw 
engaged in this work, contentment and peace were un- 
mistakably stamped. Nor is it alone to poor living, 
mere absence of comfort, their hard lot extends. This 
might be borne amid humble domestic joys, and a 
circle of duty close at hand ; but that circle extends 



174 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

for decades upon decades of weary inhospitable miles, 
from fishing-cove to fishing-cove, where the Sunday 
services come round to each once in so many weeks or 
months. Upon the instant must the parson rouse and 
trudge through snow and ice, no matter the weather, 
no matter the distance, on a summons from a parish- 
ioner ; for though his task be one of hearty love and 
goodwill, he knows any want of alacrity would speedily 
bring the priest, ever on the watch, to the sick person s 
bedside. With wallet on back, amid the dreary winter, 
he turns away from his modest roof, and departs, it may 
be for a month or more, on a tour through his wide 
district (parish is a ridiculous term), obtaining a lift 
here or there, or the chance of a ferry across a lake ; 
sleeping in the fishermen's huts, amid fry of all sorts, 
where cleanliness and comfort may be things almost 
unknown. Yet the welcome they have to offer, with 
little more than a cup of tea and bit of salt cod, is 
given heartily. The good old minister of St Thomas, 
our garrison chaplain, for many years missionary in 
the roughest and wildest parts of the colony, used to 
say that never but on one occasion had he been re- 
ceived churlishly, or indeed without pleasure, when 
seeking shelter either from Koman Catholics or Pro- 
testants. 

Yes, we may say of both persuasions, such men are 
truly missionaries, from the Bishop to his youngest 
curate. Nor is the title written without a little reserve, 
inasmuch as it is one but little honoured among a large 
number of thinking men at home. It is well known 



The Anglican Branch of the Catholic Church. 175 

that there have been seen in our colonies men, so called 
indeed, yet often little worthy of the apostolic standard ; 
illiterate, greedy of gain, coarse, essentially worldly in 
their pursuits and acts; if not much despised, at least 
little honoured. We speak of them simply as a con- 
trast to their worthier brethren here. Here, indeed, 
we find men who, not hiding their laziness behind 
stone walls under a pretence of religion, give up all to 
God save reproach or poverty, and fight in pure faith the 
great battle amid all its temptations, with all its sweat- 
producing trials. They seek to be of the band with 
" Him who overcometh.' ; In the simple belief that 
they shall reign with the King hereafter in a better 
world, they cast the joys of this one at His feet now, 
and use their substance and strength in His service, 
trying to walk even as He walked on earth in doing 
good to suffering sinful men. 

The influence of good as of evil is contagious, and 
the chief missionary who gave up his delights on the 
fairest vale of earth, has not wanted followers even in 
this sacrifice. One summer day, when Italy might 
have claimed the blue canopy overhead, we, a party of 
friends, drove to celebrate a birthday in a distant 
outport. Mile after mile of a gradual ascent upon the 
slope of a broad hill, along which were scattered little 
farms, cut out like oases in the desert of bog or barren, 
were passed, ere we turned the crest to plunge quickly 
down the opposite slope, where, at each angle of the 
road, the broad waters of Conception Bay flashed back 
the dazzling sunbeams. Leaping between the clefts 






176 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

of rock some hundred feet below us with many a 
little foaming fall, from level to level, a little babbling 
burn ran, a glad herald before us to the sandy beach. 
There a few straggling houses at the foot of the hills 
led, of course, to a larger fishing village, whose whole 
population of women, children, and cripples, were at 
that moment on the flat flakes which fringe the beach, 
to spread the half-dried fish before the welcome sun- 
beams. Beneath a clump of spruce, upon a bit of 
velvet sward, our merry dinner is discussed ; then, 
while the younger fry seize the golden moments for a 
more active process of digestion, we elders strolled into 
the village to observe, and in so observing laugh or 
learn. Suddenly, from behind a fir-grove, was heard 
the tinkling, tinkling, tinkling of a vesper-bell, gently 
bidding all good folk and wayfarers to come and join 
its modest worship. Except from a Koman source it 
was almost the last thing one might have expected to 
hear in such a place, and yet we soon found that this 
invitation came from an orthodox offshoot of " the 
Anglican branch of the Catholic faith/' as some folk 
here so love to style it. Just as we entered the portals 
of the neat wooden edifice, a thin elderly man, who had 
been tolling his own summons, ascended the lectern, 
and began to read the daily evening-service of the 
Church. None but ourselves, chance visitors, were 
there ; and we, who came not to scoff, remained with 
that simply trusting man to pray. After the service, 
my friend Nathaniel whispered that this was another 
blessing to the Church brought by the influence of the 



The Anglican Branch of the Catholic Church. 177 

Bishop. They were personal friends and first-class men 
at Oxford ; and, like the Bishop, this man (besides 
being the possessor of ample private means) gave up 
his living in England to come out and work under his 
old college friend in this remote fishing-village on the 
edge of the wild Atlantic, where his intercourse with 
the great civilised world beyond was but scant indeed. 
While he told us this simple tale of loving faith, its 
hero joined us close outside his cottage-presbytery, 
which he asked us to enter. What a strange interior 
it was ! Boxes, trunks, deal chests by dozens, lying 
about in every direction ; tables and chairs, littered 
with pamphlets and letters, scattered broadcast around. 
It was a literary chaos, through which one could barely 
move : a true picture of a man without a helpmeet, 
of a house which was not a home. The uncarpeted 
room served both for parlour and kitchen, and the 
parson's humble fare— tea, bread, two eggs boiled with 
his own hands, and a large basin full of butter cut with 
a spoon — soon appeared on the table. Thus the hermit 
lived, keeping no servant, but depending for a scrub 
to his house, for the making of his bed, and, indeed, 
almost for the simple necessaries of daily food, on his 
friends in the village below. If they came to his need, 
well and good; if not, he rubbed on, without thinking 
much of or heeding his necessities, so that he might 
have health and strength to ring his little bell for 
matins and evens, and watch over the sick-beds of all 
who wanted him. He preferred to spend his own 
means with those who wanted, to seeking the comforts 

M 



178 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

of the outer world. This is to be a missionary, to be a 
man of God in many senses of the word, even though 
it contain an example which few men could strictly 
or even should follow. 

This is no solitary case — stranger can be put on record. 
Yet not all can put their hands to such work without 
looking back. I remember a young clergyman, full of 
zeal, who, with a bride, went off for the solitary wilds of 
Labrador ; but he came back after the first year, and 
said, very meekly, " that he could not stand it." The 
maid would not stay with the young wife, who was some- 
times left in the cottage alone for six weeks at a stretch, 
with nothing but a barrel of salt pork to which she could 
appeal for nourishment. It was a wonder she survived 
the hideous solitude ; and it would have been simply in- 
sensible murder to persist. And there was another man 
who fought the fearful battle for many long, weary years 
on that iron northern coast, where the snow lies upon the 
withered ground nine months out of twelve, and inter- 
course with scattered neighbours is interdicted by the 
season at a stretch. He, too, was a man possessed of 
ample means of this world's goods, yet, at the call of his 
friend, came out from England to take up his dwelling 
in the benighted fishing-village, intent for the future on 
one great object — the proclamation of the glad tidings 
to all who would hear them. It was wondrous how he 
could have borne the strain upon his nerves so long. In 
such a man, to live amid the eternal blank of snow, with- 
out a creature of one's own kith or class — depending on 
a barrel of pork and hard biscuit — forced to go from 



The Anglican Branch of the Catholic Church. 179 

harbour to harbour, with vast intervening distances, 
often unable to find the place, deep-buried amid the 
equalising snows — without books, news, friends — eight 
months at a time without intelligence from the great 
outer world ; — this for a season might be terrible, but 
for life it is nothing but slow martyrdom. How glad 
we were when the Bishop sent for the faithful mission- 
ary, to recruit his health among us. He was a child 
again amid gardens, flowers, and fruit. Books, old to 
us, were worlds of delight to him — photographic-albums 
and telegraphic-messages, awful as the oracles of Delphi 
to the ancients. At first he walked about the busy world 
as a man long confined in darkness and still half-blind. 
By degrees his strength returned, and with it, alack ! 
the desire to return to his scene of labour, and conflict 
again with all that flesh holds dear. Earnestly his 
friends besought him not to go, to sacrifice everything, 
perhaps reason itself ; but all in vain. Can any cloistered 
monk, throughout the wide realms of indolence, super- 
stition, or fanaticism, show labour and sacrifice equal to 
this ? Yet a greater proof of his resolution, a harder 
trial of his unflinching faith, awaited him. During this 
furlough, like foolish and wise men alike, he fell under 
the soft redeeming influence of our fallen nature. She 
(God bless her for a trusting woman !) would have gone 
with him to — where shall I say ? — farther than any word 
that can be written, or thought can invent. But her 
parents wisely said " nay :" and an old clergyman, him- 
self a zealous missionary in its real sense in these wilds, 
on being appealed to by them, counselled our good friend 



180 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

not again to tempt the fearful shores of Greenland, but 
now to fulfil for the rest of his life his social duties, in 
conjunction with his zeal to God, in a more genial land. 
He received no reply but a sad and gentle shake of the 
head : and when the old prophet added, that he might 
surely now resign such hardships to a younger man, 
sternly the gentle martyr raised his voice, and cried — 
M Get thee behind me, Satan — I say, get thee behind." 

So the vision of sweet love and of a new home melted 
away, and soon after he departed again for those frozen 
shores. We will not say he was right ; or of the old 
prophet, in his entreaties, "Alas! my brother! " We 
cannot judge of the terrible conflict between the Maker 
and His servant ; but we may ask once more, Can any 
cloistered monk throughout the world show zeal or self- 
denial such as this man — bound by no vows, confined 
by no walls, fettered by no will, save that of his con- 
science in treaty with his God ? 

And yet, I protest, one more instance of a self-denying 
zeal must not be unrecorded. There was, not many miles 
from our fish-capital, a poor clergyman, with a young 
family, who, in the midst of the poorest district of the 
place, struggled for bare existence for many long years, 
his shoulder ever gored against the collar, and yet sharing 
with the wretched poverty around him his unbuttered 
crust, when he had nothing better (and it was rarely he 
had) to offer. At last it so happened that a neighbour- 
ing bishop, having heard of the man and of his worth, 
sent to him an offer of a far better living than the one 
he held. Great was the rejoicing under that humble 



The Anglican Branch of the Catholic Church. 181 

roof when the news arrived; but, by the following mail, 
a letter told him of the bitter disappointment this offer 
had occasioned to a curate who had been there several 
years, and who was, if possible, a still poorer man than 
himself. He actually sat down and wrote a second letter 
to the Bishop recalling his first acceptance, and express- 
ing a respectful hope that the claim of the curate might 
not be forgotten ! Ah, ah ! how often, in our long 
journeys through life, with our vast opportunities, do we 
imitate this grand unselfishness ! 

Yet, with such godly men as these, for example — with 
such a Bishop as leader — the " Anglican branch of the 
Catholic Church " languishes in the heart of her people. 
Adapted for generations born some centuries back, her 
rulers hesitate, in a world ever changing, to suit the 
services of the worship of their Creator to the require- 
ments and wants of the living. Her doctrines may 
stand on a foundation of rock, but her manner of setting 
them forth to the simple rests on a bed of sand. With 
a lax or indifferent bishop the Anglicans of Newfound- 
land might long ago have been shunted into the many 
by-ways of Dissent — leading in all directions from the 
king's State highway, while not a few, here and there, 
run almost parallel to it. The piety, earnestness, sim- 
plicity of life of the bishop, combined with the high 
tone of an English gentleman, have influenced many of 
this generation to linger in the old paths yet. Alas ! 
stronger testimony to the worth of the man, and to the 
suicidal weakness of the Church over which he presides, 
and so dearly loves, could not be recorded. 




CHAPTER XII. 



SPRING— THE ARGONAUTS OF THE NORTH. 




;ESPERATE, as pitiable, is the state of desti- 
tution in which the lower classes of the 
capital are plunged during the inactivity of 
winter. Large wages are usually earned all 
through the summer, but saving in harvest-time is a 
thing unknown here ; and although the merchants are 
bled for supplies to the uttermost farthing, yet by the 
beginning of February things look pretty bad in the 
slums of the town and the villages near about. But 
after Valentine's day they take a sudden turn. The 
busy sound of axes and hammers reverberate hum- 
mingly from the hillsides around the snug harbour; 
and not a rotten old schooner, brig, or lugger which can 
swim, or swimming can be insured, but is trimmed up 
and provisioned to join the great spring seal-fishery. 
From that day to the end of the month the excitement 
as to the men who are ^to sail on this momentous ex- 
pedition increases rapidly, and the grog-shops of Water 
Street reap a rich harvest, the greater part of the score 
^being reserved to be wiped off at the end of the voyage. 



Spring — The Argonauts of the North. 183 

For many years past this great fishery, or hunting ex- 
cursion on the ocean fields of ice, as it should be more 
properly named, had brought hundreds of thousands of 
pounds sterling among the community yearly; and lucky 
was the man esteemed who had secured his berth in a 
ship to be sailed and commanded by some smart and 
experienced hand. 

Long ere the first days of March had stolen on us, 
the fleet had gathered one by one in battle order, as it 
were, beneath the dark shades of the south side hills. 
It was at this time, when the preparatory excitement 
was at its highest, that, walking with Wolfe up at the 
west end of the town, near the head of the harbour, we 
came upon the loud sound of angry voices proceeding 
from a crowd gathered round the closed doors of a mer- 
chant's office. Some of the men were knocking at the 
knotty door, some beating with the flat of their hands 
against the clattering shutters ; while, amid the tumul- 
tuous clamour, we could distinguish the sounds of 
" Larry ! be all the saints, and be the Holy Mother!" — 
"Larry, not a man will be going for ye !" — " Larry !" this, 
and " Larry!" that. It was evident something very ex- 
citing to those weather-beaten, unsavoury looking cus- 
tomers was going on. 

"It's the berth-money, yer honner," said one of them, 
dressed in a tight suit of yellow canvas, steeped in oil 
and smelling horribly. " It's the % berth-money the boys 
is disputing ; and Larry, the old villin, won't put down 
a man of us at the same rate as last year. He's riz ten 
shillings, and faix he 's too hard altogether." 






184 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

The berth-money was the fee each man paid for the 
ticket for his chance of the voyage, including provisions 
put on board by the merchants. If he was keen in his 
bargain, all that can be said is that the old coon knew his 
customers ; for while we talked to the would-be-sealers, 
there was a split among them, begun by observing 
one or two slipping round to the rear of the wharf, 
and entering their names in the ship's books, leaving 
the others either in the lurch or at once to follow their 
example. A few days after this not a vessel was to be 
seen in the harbour. Taking advantage of a southerly 
wind, they had slipped out at break of day in the pur- 
suit of their hard exciting voyage to the northward. 

Then, for the next three weeks to a month, the hearts 
of all classes in the great fish-colony palpitate between 
hope and dread incessantly. The first thing on waking, 
the last before sleeping (if, indeed, some slept at all), 
the only observation hazarded in the streets, was the 
state of wind and weather bearing on this momentous 
voyage. All had a stake in it. The merchant in his 
ships, stores, and winter credits to the fishermen ; the 
fishermen to pay these debts, in order (and in order 
solely) to obtain more credit for the summer cod-fishery. 
The grocers, haberdashers, lawyers, publicans, barbers, 
butchers, bakers, coopers, tailors, planters, insurance 
companies, priests, ministers, gentlemen, and shoe- 
blacks, all depend, practically, for very existence upon 
this great venture. About the time when news may 
possibly be expected, the excitement rapidly increases 
towards fever-point ; the grog-shops drive if possible a 



Spring — The Argonauts of the North. 185 

still more roaring business, straining credit to the verge 
of credulity ; and all manner of wagers are laid upon 
the first ship making her voyage home, and the number 
of seals in her hold. The pretty girls may be seen 
gloating at the shop windows on the finery they hope 
to wear soon on Sunday, when their sweethearts return ; 
and the little razeed old men, who have lost their legs at 
the knee-joint, frozen off in former memorable voyages, 
and who for eleven months in the year stump about 
quite unnoticed, are now hauled into the tap-rooms, 
and with unlimited treats cross-examined on their for- 
mer experiences. Those great captains of history, 
Cuttle and Burnsby, could not acquit themselves better 
in enlightening everybody without compromising them- 
selves. Poor fellows ! they have a glorious time of it 
for a week or so, but it is indeed a hard-earned joy. 

Yet day by day may pass away without a sign flutter- 
ing from the cross-yards of the post on Signal Hill, 
though, as the merchants and other good folk peep 
anxiously upwards, the signal-man like a speck against 
the blue sky may ever be seen with his glass towards 
the north. It is almost pitiable to watch the anxious 
faces straining their eyes upon that flag-post, while 
every now and then some two or three, buttoning their 
coats up to their chins, start off to breast that heart- 
breaking hill, and take a look for themselves. It is 
pitiable to watch their downcast looks as they descend, 
and to listen to their sad good-night at the corner of the 
street. But, at length, the sun rises on a bright breezy 
morn, with the wind nor-west, and a flutter runs through 



186 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

the city, the presage of something coming. Men meet 
and wag their heads as they pass, saying, " This is the 
wind, my boy! we shall hear of something before to- 
night." Ah ! how they do strain their eyes upon that 
signal-staff, until at last— yes, no. yes — it cannot be— 
the man drops the glass, looks again, seizes a halyard, 
and runs up a ball to the northward, and soon after a 
pennant from the truck is proclaiming, " A schooner to 
the nor'-east." Heavens! is the town gone mad ? They 
are running up the hill by hundreds, out-racing each 
other, and storming the look-out in a phalanx. Hilloa ! 
there is another ball, another pennant ! "A number of 
vessels to the northward?" All the women are at the 
doors and windows, and business is suspended except at 
the grog-shops. The fleet is evidently coming in, and 
" Have they made a voyage ?" is the awful question on 
every tongue. " Will they be up before night ?" " The 
wind is shifting round." "How leaden the clouds are 
gathering up." " We shall have snow." And so night 
creeps on apace, and covers the slushy streets once more 
with its cold white blanket, which it were better could it 
but chill down the feverish pulses which chase away all 
rest and sleep from the homes of both rich and poor. Far 
out on the horizon, beating against the southerly gale, 
how does it fare with the weary mariners ? Across the 
broad light which gleams at the entrance of the Nar- 
rows, what a vast network of thought is interweaving 
between the sailors and their homes on land. It is a 
theme which some one (I know not who) has tenderly 
touched in graphic lines, which deserve a better place 






Spring — The Argonauts of the North. 187 

for immortality than these humble pages can hope to 
secure for them. 



MAKING THE HARBOUR-LIGHT. 

The snow falls thick, so you may not see 

The foresail gleam from the break o' the poop— 

The long-boat looms like a rock on the lee, 
And the drift lies a foot on hatch and coop. 

Long glimmering lines of dark and light 

Mingle in wavy dance up aloft — 
And the topmast-head goes into the night, 

Capp'd with a head-dress white and soft. 

Phantom-like figures grow in the tops, 
And the bunts of the furled-up sails are piled 

With a heavy freight that sullenly drops 

When the good ship bends to a gust more wild. 

And the clues o' the courses, stiff as a board, 
Catch up the flakes into bossy heaps, 

Till, a flap, and off whirrs the sparkling hoard, 
Startling the tars in their standing sleeps. 

Still, stoutly onwards we hold our course, 
Hugging the wind with a bear-like grip — 

Holding each inch we gain, with a force, 
And passing the credit to our good ship. 

The helmsman's eye, from under the rim 
Of his slouch'd sou'-wester, beams a-glow — 

No matter how braggart the wind to him, 
And little matter the fall o' the snow. 



Hand, eye, and ear are serving his soul — 
He " feels " the flap o' the topsail leach, 

And steadily over, watching the roll, 
Whirls the wheel to an arm-long reach. 

Grasping the weathermost mizen-shrouds 
As grimly as if were gript in his hands 



188 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

Our fifteen lives, and swathed in a cloud 
Of sleet-stuff and snow, the master stands. 

Into the darkness and whirling flakes, 
Into the heart of the brooding bank, 

A long, dim alley his calm eye makes, 
And the world outside is all a blank. 

Empires and kingdoms may foundering be, 
And bloodiest wars afoot on the land ; 

But his the duty to conquer the sea, 

And keep his soul and ours in command. 

Not for him to peer at the compass-card, 
And blur or dazzle the steady eye ; 

But, sternly staring, he mutters hard — 
" Keep her close at it," or " Full and by ! " 

No voice, save his, on the midnight stirs, 

No sounds save the plash, and swish, and swirl, 

As, under her bows, one ceaselessly hears 
The slush-covered water part and curl, 

And gurgle along the sloppy sides, 

Clutching the snow out the chains at a jump, 

Then slipping away with the murmuring tides, 
Or striking the quarters a sluggish bump. 

With the quiet flakes on his stiffen' d feet, 
Searching his neck, and nipping his eyes, 

On the rounded coils of the spanker-sheet, 
A youngster, half-dreaming, shapeless lies. 

He knows that, true to his will, his hand 
Would promptly obey the master's shout ; 

But his thoughts are far away on the land, 
Nor heeds he for any perils without. 

He dreams of a valley, spread broad and fair, 
With grand old mountains upon each side ; 

He dreams of a red lamp's cheerful glare, 
Welcoming ships to the old wharf side, 



Spring — The Argonauts of the North. 189 

Of a little room, with its walls a-blaze, 

On happy faces, all bright with joy ! 
And he hears the voices of olden days, 

Before he went as a sailor-boy. 

Dear, kind, brown eyes, seem his to greet — 

" God bless and guard her ! " he prays, " 'tis she ! " 

When a cry "Ease off that spanker-sheet ! 
Hard up the helm, and keep her free /" 

One glare, one flare of a flashing light, 
And the visions die with its sudden ray ; 

The lee-braces fly with a circling bight, 

And the sheets spin out with a wild hurra ! 

The water seethes at the bluff o' the bow, 
And the helm churns it to hissing wrath — 

And the strain on the ship and the master's brow 
Relax to welcome the well-known path. 

With a surge and a bound the yards swing square, 
And the night 's alive with our cheery cries, 

As before the snow-storm, free and fair, 
Merrily homewards our good ship flies. 

Scarcely daybreak out on the hill-tops, yet the mer- 
chants, wrestling for glasses and watching the fleet 
some miles off (chary of the iron-bound coast), lay 
heavily on the first ship past Fort Amherst, the num- 
ber of her catch of seals, and the house she may belong 
to. There is one vessel at least two miles nearer in 
than her consorts, her number is flying from the peak, 
but they cannot quite make it out. Ah ! what palpi- 
tation ! what tantalisation ! The top flag is a 2 ; the 
lowest a 7 ; no, it is a 9, — which is it, Bowring or 
M'Bride ? for it is clear it is one of the lucky twain. 
The schooner yaws for a second, but that's enough; 



1 90 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

the numbers stand out bravely in the breeze ; and John 
Bowring, jumping up, shouts to the signal-man to hoist 
the number of his house. Look over the Queen's Bat- 
tery, across the harbour among the still hazy wharves 
and ships ; almost in less time than it can be written 
looms out a puff of white smoke, and to the faint boom 
of a gun the signal-flag of the house on their own wharf 
is run up in acknowledgment of the joyful news. In 
ten minutes more they know that 7000 seals are in the 
schooner's hold, and honest John, with a crushed hat, 
flushed cheeks, and well-bespattered clothes, comes 
tearing down the hill, heeding nothing as he rushes 
past to his counting-house. He knows he has driven 
that last hour many a nail into his future villa on the 
banks of Mersey. Good honest fellow! no one is jealous 
of his luck ; and yet few would like to take him for a 
partner at our whist-club that evening ; his revokes 
would probably be something awful ! 

One by one, all through that great day of all others 
in the year, they come gliding through the Narrows, 
until, just as the sun tips the crest of Signal Hill with 
a farewell crimson kiss, the last laggard of the fleet 
anchors in the channel, to wait until the little, busy, 
bewildered tug shall have leisure to haul them inside. 
But in truth it matters but little whether the ships 
anchor or not, for surely as the sun sinks, out go the 
boats, and leaving the captain to take care of the ship 
as best he can, in a few minutes the greasy hunters 
jump on shore, and are hauled off by friends and women 
as mad with joy as they are. In streets, in lanes, in 



Spring — The Argonauts of the North. 191 

cottages of the poor, as well as in mansions of the rich, 
the night is prolonged in one great universal orgie. It 
was on one of these occasions that an officer of rank, 
sent up to Fish-and-fog-land from Halifax on an official 
commission, said, in answer to a question as to what 
sort of a place it was, " Well, sir, I was only there three 
days, and they appeared to me to be all drunk." 

Alas ! it was not destined to be my good fortune to 
witness so pleasant a prosperity during my three years 
sojourn in the great fish-colony. The grand harvest of 
the Arctic Sea was not gathered in. Our worthy mer- 
chants came down, in those sad years, from Signal Hill 
more slowly than they ascended ; and, though it is very 
probable the amount of liquor consumed in the slums 
and groggeries was much the same, yet, on these occa- 
sions, it was drunk not to celebrate a rejoicing, but to 
drown sorrow for bad luck, as well as, perhaps, to 
honour the health of those accommodating patrons who 
had been feeding their families all the winter, and were 
about to do the same for the summer, without a half- 
penny returned. If they drank for luck the first year 
of failure, it brought no good fortune to the next year's 
venture ; and then gaunt women and children, often 
barefooted, all through that terrible winter, through ice 
and snow, were seen in numbers running from door to 
door begging charity sorely needed. Yes, in the wintry 
months of 1863 poor Fish-and-fog-land was, indeed, 
hardly pressed ; but the elastic Irish heart woke up 
with the strengthening sun in spring, and the ships 
were once more rigged out for the old venture almo&t 



1 92 Lost A mid the Fogs. 

as gaily and gladly as before.- Four — five — six — long 
weeks passed by, and not a vestige of news reached the 
trembling city from the north. It was sickening to 
behold the anxious, long-drawn faces at the doors 
watching the staff on the Signal Hill, from which, sad 
to relate, the pennants for the returning fleet were 
never to fly. But the ill -tidings came at last. The 
ships had never struck the seals at all ; but, caught by 
easterly gales between the ice and a lee-shore, had been 
jammed until they had been crushed like walnuts in 
that iron grasp. The men, poor wretches ! had escaped 
on shore ; and the news came that they were starving 
in the out-harbours to the northward, from which the 
miserable, broken-looking wretches came down by drib- 
lets, and slank away to their equally miserable lairs. 
Down tumbled insurance companies, never to raise their 
heads again; and old-established houses, of undoubted 
strength and reputation, shook and trembled under such 
terrific blows. Bad enough for these, but worse for the 
fishermen to endure. What a sad, sad picture it must 
have been, to witness the return of the disappointed, 
starving man to his cottage, with starving faces before 
him, to whom he brings no help, and his own strength 
for work all but exhausted ! That night they anxiously 
debate the prospect of seeking a little more credit — of 
feeling whether there may not be just one ticket left in 
the great lottery-bag, as an escape for themselves and 
little ones from death. In very many cases this is no 
exaggerated picture of unfortunate Fish-and-fog-land 
in the disastrous spring of 1864. 



Spring — The A rgonauts of the North . J 93 

There is one curious consideration connected with the 
seal-fishery for which I never could obtain a satisfactory 
solution. It is the very short time — a bare three weeks 
— which this usually rich harvest lasts. The hunters 
strike their prey on the great pans of ice floating down 
from the Arctic seas ; but, after the vessels are once 
filled — or rather, whether lucky or not, after this stereo- 
typed portion of time has passed — no attempt to follow 
the seals to the southward is ever made ; nor could any 
one ever explain what became of the great shoals of these 
animals after passing Newfoundland. Perhaps this is 
just as well ; for, if it be true that the female seal only 
produces one young one yearly, they certainly would, 
unless they escaped some years, have long ago been 
exterminated. It is probable that, after running down 
with the Arctic current as far as the great Banks, follow- 
ing the vast and various shoals of fish which are seeking 
the shallow waters round the coast, in which to deposit 
their spawn, the seals turn to the westward up the Gulf 
of St Lawrence, and make terrible havoc among the 
salmon and sea-trout at the mouths of the numberless 
streams which flow into the mighty father of northern 
waters. Moreover, it is certain that, in some of these 
tributaries, little known or frequented, save by the 
Indians, or by the amateur fly-fisher who rents the water 
for the season from the Canadian Government, they are 
often seen in untold numbers. I remember hearing that, 
in 1865, an officer of the Montreal staff, with his wife, 
pitched their tent, during one of these excursions, far up 
on the wild unknown banks of the St John, for the com- 



1 94 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

bined objects of fishing, photography, and the pleasant, 
unshackled life of the wigwam. One sunny afternoon, 
in July, they were out in a canoe in one of the reaches 
of the stream, when, on a large bare flat rock, project- 
ing into the river about four hundred yards ahead, they 
suddenly saw a vast number of moving creatures. What 
these were they could not imagine, unless they were 
bears or wolves driven inwards by a concentrated back- 
wood fire. At length, after a steady survey with the 
glass, to the lady's great relief, the astonished officer 
pronounced them to be seals in countless numbers. He 
made a stealthy approach to within a hundred yards, the 
canoe was stopped, and the contents of a double-barrelled 
rifle poured in. Almost by the time the piece was low- 
ered from his shoulder the whole area of the rock was 
cleared, while the river beneath literally boiled and 
foamed like a cauldron. They climbed the rock and 
looked down upon the hundreds upon hundreds of seals, 
whose myriad eyes watched them from below. Con- 
ceive the havoc these hungry brutes must make with 
the salmon ; and conceive, again, if that be possible, the 
prodigious quantity of salmon there must be in the river 
to supply their ravenous appetites, and yet allow a good 
angler to play and kill his twenty-five or thirty fish 
a-day. As an Irishman said, of the stake-nets in the 
Shannon, before the Commissioners — " Bedad, gintil- 
men, if it warn't for them there wouldn't be wather 
enough to float the sammin." 

This, however, by no means settles the disputed point, 
as to what becomes of the seals when the ice deserts 



Spying— The Argonauts of the North. 195 

them, on striking the shoulder of the Gulf Stream 
below Newfoundland : and, pursuing our inquiry, it is 
not a little curious to find a fish, which breeds both in 
the Arctic and Antarctic regions, plentiful in the tepid 
waters of the Caribbean Sea. From the lighthouse on 
the palisades of Port-Koyal, at the entrance of the har- 
bour of Kingston, in Jamaica, for many miles westward 
along that coast, a line encloses a system of low coral 
islands, reefs, banks, and shoals, colonized by innumer- 
able birds and fishes. Each kind has its own locality, 
and keys and islands never interchange inhabitants. 
The bank that gives the king-fish gives neither the 
snapper nor the grouper. Southward from the ex- 
tremity of this long bank, at a distance of some few 
leagues, the great Pedro bank is reached, stretching 
another hundred miles, the keys of which attract yearly 
vast numbers of fishing-boats from the main, for the 
great egg-harvest. Some three miles out, to leeward of 
the South-west Key, lies Seal Key. It is about three 
acres in extent, and some twenty feet in height. There 
is no approach to this islet but in very fine weather, on 
account of the sunken reefs, on which the surf plays 
with fury. At the best of times landing is not effected 
without great peril, as a continual sea rushes up the 
shore. There is not a particle of vegetation on this 
key : the booby-birds repair to it, but do not breed 
there. It is the congregating place of seals alone. 
There they seem, in vast numbers, to delight in basking 
in the hot sun, and to huddle together and grunt out 
their pleasure in each other's company. In truth, save 



196 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

from the shot of a rifle, they live here in safety ; though, 
as these reefs are visited only once a-year, for a few- 
weeks each spring, it is not known whether they remain 
for the whole year round, or are merely there in their 
passage north or south. I remember hearing of a party 
who did succeed in landing, and in heading an old bull- 
seal before he could gain the beach. They killed him 
after a hard battle. He proved to be an aged patriarch, 
with teeth worn down to the stumps, and a hide gashed 
and seared with scars got in many a fierce fight. Who 
can tell us more of his history, and whether he ever 
crossed and recrossed the great river of the ocean be- 
tween far-off Greenland and the hot, barren rocks in 
the centre of the blue Antilles ? 

Yet, notwithstanding the havoc made by the seals 
upon the salmon, we were not without that luxury in 
its due season in Fish-and-fog-land, though it was 
rarely until the beginning of July that the first speci- 
men of this glorious fish was brought in from Portugal 
Cove. The great object which amateur gardeners had 
in view was to raise a cucumber to match this noble 
dish, — a feat which, late as the season was, has never 
been to my knowledge accomplished in St John's. 
For want of experience, combined with an undue fear 
of frosty nights, while the snow still lay thick upon 
the ground, our hot-beds were always begun too late. 
True, we had surer work to go by, but for all that 
we never managed to eat our salmon and cucumber 
together : the more 's the pity, for such salmon as these 
are unknown elsewhere. Our fish were caught ere they 



Spring — The Argonauts of the North. 197 

left the sea, the numberless mountain streams round 
St John's being too small for their ascent. Every day 
that a salmon out of the salt ascends the fresh water; 
he loses in firmness and sweetness ; so it was doubly 
hard lines that, first in season we had the lobsters, 
next the salmon, then the salad, and last of all the 
cucumber; but never in the great fish-colony could 
these luxuries be procured ensemble for love or money, 
and no doubt for want of skill. 

In truth, spite of the good results, and the pleasure 
afforded by the occupation, horticulture in Newfound- 
land was a terribly uphill game. No sooner did the 
brown head of Signal Hill peep from beneath its winter 
blanket, and long before the weary stall-penned cattle 
were suffered to roam the fields again, usually about 
the beginning of April, than spade and shovel began 
tickling the ribs of our common mother, in the hope of 
seeing the smile of a bountiful promise spread quickly 
over her face. The sun, which (in the latitude of 
Paris) is now powerfully felt, soon turns this promise 
into reality, and the trim little gardens began to be gay 
with hardy flowers ; while between the rows of bloom- 
ing gooseberry and currant bushes, peas, beans, lettuces, 
and many other kinds of the good old sorts, look day 
by day more boldly at the bright king above. By the 
end of the month, or beginning of May, there is just a 
patch or two of dirty snow left in the corners of the 
streets ; the musk rats are swimming gaily in the 
lakes and rivulets, the snipe is drumming joyously 
overhead, and the old man's beard, a frozen torrent 



198 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

on the south side hills (always the last relic ot winter 
to be seen), has dwindled, as it were, into a few long 
hoary hairs. Frost! the idea is simply absurd; or 
even if it should come, it can be but a gentle touch 
which can do no great harm. But one afternoon, 
somehow, there is a queer, chilly feel in the air, and 
the olive-tinted hills look gray with dark-blue cavities ; 
the sun sets blood red, and the cloudless sky at night 
flashes as a vast steel-embossed canopy overhead. It 
was cold ; but I little suspected, when the doors were 
closed for the night, the havoc which morning's light 
would display. The little garden was not; the black 
earth was there, but the flowers and tender plants were 
gone. Kepining was of little use ; there was yet time, 
and cheerfully we set to work to sow and plant again, 
until in three weeks more the garden began to smile 
again, and the old trial was almost forgotten. Then it 
happened that, one evening returning home after our 
usual stroll, as the peep of the vast Atlantic opened 
through the Narrows, lo ! the entrance of the harbour 
was almost blockaded by a huge white iceberg, and the 
Arctic ice, detached from its great parent depot, was 
running with the current down our coast, charged with 
cold chills for the earth, and heavy fogs hereafter in its 
battle with the warm Gulf Stream to the southward. 
Thus it went on running past us week after week, 
while every now and then a stronger south-easterly 
wind than usual would completely block up the Nar- 
rows or harbour with the hideous alabaster-looking 
lumps. We, poor frozen- out gardeners, stood and 






Spring — The Argonauts of the North. 199 

looked in utter disgust at the prospect ; as well we 
might. The young plants did not die, but they refused 
to grow. It mattered not a whit to the young ducks 
that the peas to match them stood still ; but like the 
story of the salmon and cucumber aforesaid, it happened 
that young ducks and young peas could never get 
together. April past, May past, June almost gone ; 
weary, weary, weary. But at last the heavy fogs came 
rolling up over the south side hills, showing that the 
great annual conflict between north and south had begun, 
and the white -clad armies of the north melted daily 
away. (Would that it had always been so elsewhere.) 
Then came our reward at last with bright sunny days, 
so doubly enjoyable in a place where the heat of the 
glad sun is a thing not to be dreaded but enjoyed. 
Beneath his witching looks the dull brown livery of 
earth's sad surface changed to a living emerald. Be- 
neath our very gaze the eager tendrils of the hop, 
convolvulus, and scarlet-runner seize the strong arms 
ready to raise them from the ground ; while birds in 
troops from warmer climes fly past to the great inland 
woods and swamps, there to coo, and build, and raise 
their young, undisturbed by the murderous hand of 
man. Country, gardens, fields, cliffs, mountains, all is 
delightful now as the bower of roses by Bendemeer's 
stream or fairyland itself. But, ah ! how short it 
sometimes is. This very year of which we write, cut 
off by frost once, twice, and the harbour full of ice on 
the 3d of July ! Yet we followed the command of the 
Preacher to sow in the morning and withhold not the 



200 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

hand in the evening, though much of the seed cast into 
the earth this year never came back after many days 
to bless the sower. Rising one morning very early on 
the 2d of September, to start on a shooting expedi- 
tion, terrible was the sight the hitherto beautiful little 
garden presented. It was just as if the breath of a 
furnace had passed through it, and blasted the beauty 
of earth for ever. Stalk, flower, leaf, fruit, were all 
alike the prey of that cruel herald of far-off winter. 
Nearly all the joy, all the labour for that year, was for 
the third time gone, and so the Preacher was right 
when he preached of vanity, and that there was no 
profit to a man under the sun. Happily all years are 
not like this: and the destroyer seldom comes before 
the harvest of field and garden is safely gathered in. 
We have no peaches or plums, and but few apples. 
But our small fruits ripen well, and our vegetables 
might have been shown in Co vent Garden without 
discredit 

Yet for many years after the colony became civilised, 
vegetables and fruits were practically unknown ; for no 
one believed they could be grown. The ground was 
apparently half-rock, half-swamp. Certainly, were a 
stranger to walk over Signal Hill or the steep South 
Side slopes, he might be pardoned if he were a little 
incredulous on the subject of cultivation. Yet the 
slope on which the city stands was just the same but a 
few years back, and now fifty gardens bear produce fit 
for an emperor's table. A few humble potatoes led 
the van, until, finally, the triumphs of hotbeds with 



Spring — The Argonauts of the North. 201 

cucumbers and melons was attained ; and the day 
is not far distant when orchard-houses and conserva- 
tories will lend their charms to adorn the tables of the 
luxurious, and the sick-rooms of the poor as well. 
How the rich in those days existed without them so 
long would be incomprehensible, did we not learn the 
secret lay in the rapid fortunes acquired formerly in the 
successful fisheries, and the consequent " vamosing " of 
the lucky speculators, leaving not a wreck behind them. 
And yet so strangely does the silent finger of God work, 
that, in spite of present suffering and loss, there can be 
little doubt of the failure of the fisheries for three suc- 
cessive years proving a blessing in the end. The 
merchants finding the days of quick fortune-making 
passed away, moreover beginning to understand that the 
prime of their clays, at any rate, must be spent in this 
country, are wisely settling themselves more comfortably, 
more luxuriantly. They begin to build themselves villas 
on the banks and borders of the dark-green lochs, with 
ornamental additions of little infant conservatories and 
flower-gardens. Better kinds of fruit-trees and choice 
vegetables were being imported from England or Boston, 
and gardeners will be soon wanted to take care of them. 
Art in a thousand forms to administer to these luxuries 
will be called into rapid requisition, and the higher 
skill of labour will bring a higher grade of civilisation 
and refinement in its train. Superior schools will be 
opened for the young ; and actually a people's park 
and garden was about to be laid out. Government, to 
employ the starving poor, are compelled to open new 



202 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

roads ; so that one of the chief wants in all civilised 
communities receives a little of that attention long and 
loudly called for. The fisherman, amid the shocking 
trials of starvation, is beginning to trust a little less to 
the lottery of the sea, and large patches of unpromising- 
looking ground are cleared and drained yearly. The 
cultivation of flax, for which the country seems 
eminently adapted, is beginning to attract attention. 
Should this succeed, enormous benefits would at once 
accrue to the poorer classes, as they would find em- 
ployment in cleaning and scutching the fibre during 
the long winters. With every possible acre round the 
city reclaimed, and the day may not be far distant 
but that this may be, property will rise in value. Thus, 
amid tribulation and chaos, the unerring mysterious 
finger of order is crystallising and arranging all these 
changes, sternly teaching of untold gifts blindly spurned 
in generations past ; though more than one good ruler 
(among whom, for this foresight and encouragement, 
Sir Gaspard Le Marchant should especially be remem- 
bered) earnestly sought to remedy these evils. It shall 
yet be told, as a strange story of these times, how the 
brave old Governor Sir Alexander Bannerman went 
down to the House year by year to lament in his 
opening speech the evil times which were come upon 
his people on account of the failure of the fisheries, 
hitherto their only stay; and how, thereupon, the 
members on both sides of the House, with much 
lamentation, voted an address in sympathising reply 
to his speech, and then folded their hands in utter 






Spring — The Argonauts of the North. 203 

helplessness and dismay. And they, in those after 
days, will think how the angels must have smiled to 
have heard the pitiful conclusions and forecasts of 
man's guesses on the Wisdom overruling his destinies, 
or wept to see how that he can only he taught hy the 
bitter experience of famine, misery, and death, to gather 
up some of the numberless riches and blessings always 
within his grasp, if sought for by the sure labours 
wherein we are permitted to imitate the slow and silent 
progress by which, under the Creator's hands, all things 
approach perfection. 





CHAPTER XIII. 




THE HARVESTS OF THE OCEAN. 

F, as has been already mournfully chronicled 
in these pages, the hopes of the great seal- 
fishery set year by year (in these days) in 
sorrow and disaster ; if, as the snows melted, 
then fell, and melted again, our trials in horticulture 
were manifold and severe, as even Habakkuk might 
have\ nobly faced with unswerving trust ; the sweet 
breath of summer, direct from southern seas, late in 
coming, but all the more welcome for that, lulled in 
renewed hopes all our troubles of the past. A modern 
writer has beautifully written, " There is always one 
day in the year when nature seems to me truly to awake. 
The snow has been gone for weeks, the sun has been 
shining briskly, the fruit trees are white with blossom, 
yet the sky remains hard and stern, and the earth is 
black and inhospitable, as if the remembrance of winter 
had chilled its heart. But one morning you wake un- 
warned, and you have barely drawn aside the curtains 
ere you are aware that the bonds of death are loosed ; 
that a new life has been born into the year, and that, 



The Harvests of the Ocean. 205 

like the eyes of a girl who has begun to love, the blue 
sky and the fleecy clouds have strangely softened since 
nightfall. Summer is abroad upon the mountains, and 
her maiden whisper thrills your pulse." It is a short 
yet most delicious season here. We live in the latitude 
of Paris with the temperature of Balmoral, and for this 
brief time all nature, both animate and inanimate, 
worships eagerly at the golden shrine of the God of 
Light. Almost until midnight we linger now in the 
garden beneath the shelter of the balsam- poplars, breath- 
ing in the incense of the mignonette and roses, or 
watching the vapours on the dark basin of the harbour 
lift and mingle with the shadows on the south side 
slopes, as the white moon walks gently up and peeps 
over the shoulder of the opposite Signal Hill. Ah ! the 
poets may sing as they please, but we are very certain 
that no houri basking in perpetual sunshine, no Paxton 
in his enchanted palaces, ever revelled in summer's 
gladness as we do now. To understand our delight, 
they must first stand our weary baptism in snow and 
ice, cabined up in double windowed cells for five months 
at a stretch, without freedom and exercise such as an 
Englishman must have to live in health. Hark ! that 
glad laugh born of light and heat, yet never heard 
abroad in winter. A young girl crowned with golden 
ringlets of laburnum is running down the hill chased 
by a dozen companions jealous of her lovely prize. 
Stand on the rise above the lake, as the sun bends 
towards its western edge, and watch the parties of idlers 
sauntering round the clear margin of the water, or 






206 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

stopping ever and anon to shout to the fishermen who 
have been patiently beating the dark pools for hours 
past on the jutting points of Bennett's Wood. Deeper 
and deeper grow the shadows, until a white mist hangs 
like a rolled-up curtain over the sleeping waters ; yet 
still by keen ears the whispers of some loving voices 
might be caught far into the small hours of night. 
Ah ! such delicious air to drink into the heaving breast 
as dwellers in cities or dry arid plains, where rushing 
waters are not, never know. Birds from the torrid 
southern steppes, in teeming flocks, are hourly passing 
onward to coo, mate, and build their little homes. 
Cattle, released from the close steaming stalls of winter, 
bound over the meadows, mad with the joy of liberty 
again, or stand half mesmerised by the soft air in the 
rippling shadows of the lake. Here, on its margin, the 
echo of the thousand sounds of awakened labour is 
gently borne onward by the western breeze. Ah ! now 
we say, Would it were always thus ; yet forgetful, so 
soon forgetful, of the dreary past, or that our joy in the 
present is multiplied by the infinite contrast with the 
white misery so long and patiently endured. 

Wolfe is outside the garden-gate whistling to his 
dogs. " Let us go/' said he, looking over the paling, 
"up on Signal Hill and see the cod-boats come in." 
We pass through a dirty suburb answering to the un- 
euphonious title of " Maggotty Cove " — not altogether 
misnamed for all that, — and commence at once the 
rough steep ascent of the hill, the scenery as we climb 
becoming wilder and more rugged. High above on our 



The Harvests of the Ocean. 207 

right a ruined monolith, on a mountain peak, marks 
the site of an old battery, while to the left, sunk in a 
hollow, a black bog lies sheltered amid the bare bones 
of mother earth, here mainly composed of dark red 
sandstones and conglomerates, passing down by regular 
gradations to the slate below. A sudden turn of the 
road reveals a deep solitary tarn, some three hundred 
and fifty feet above the sea, in which the guardian rocks 
reflect their purple faces, and where the ripple of the 
musk rat, hurrying across, alone disturbs the placid 
surface. We pass a hideous-looking barrack, and cross- 
ing the soft velvety sward on the crest, reach a little 
battery, from the parapets of which we look down, 
down, almost five hundred feet perpendicularly, right 
into " the Narrows," the straight or creek between the 
hills connecting the broad Atlantic with the oval har- 
bour within. The great south side hills, covered with 
luxuriant wild vegetation, and skeined with twisting 
torrents, looms across the strait so close that one might 
fancy it possible a stone could fly from the hand to the 
opposite shore. On our left the vast ocean, with no- 
thing, not a rock, between us and Galway. On our right, 
at the other end of the narrow neck of water directly 
beneath, the inner basin, expanding towards the smoke- 
hung city, with the background of blue hills as a set- 
ting to the picture, broken only in their continuous 
outline by the twin-towers of the Catholic Cathedral, 
ever thus, from all points, performing their mission of 
conspicuity. Right below us, four hundred feet per- 
pendicular, we lean over the grass parapet and look 



208 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

carefully down into the little battery guarding the nar- 
rowest part of the entering strait, where, in the old 
wars, heavy chains stretched from shore to shore. We 
see a woman, not much bigger than Ham's wife in a 
child's ark, the wife of the gunner in charge, hanging 
out linen to dry ; and if a pebble stirred from the bank 
on which we sit, it would light unpleasantly near to 
her. We shout, and the opposite cliff hurls back the 
challenge, while five hundred eyes glance upward to 
our eyrie seat. The Narrows are full of fishing-boats 
returning with the silver spoils of the day glistening in 
the holds of the smacks, which, to the number of forty 
or fifty at a time, tack and fill like a fleet of white 
swans against the western evening breeze. Even as we 
look down upon the decks, they come, and still they 
come, round the bluff point of Fort Amherst from the 
bay outside. Standing on the flat flakes echelloned on 
every cranny of the rocks are the women and children, 
ready to catch the fish as they are pitchforked up out 
of the boats, and place them ready for the splitter. 
Alack, the evil time ! they have not long to wait ; for 
like the disciples of old, many of them have toiled all 
day and caught nothing. In former years, when there 
were fewer fishermen, fewer planters, fewer murderous 
dodges against the fish, these flakes of an evening could 
scarcely bear the tremendous weight of the great ocean 
harvest. Now happy is the planter who sees his flakes 
occasionally covered with fish. Yet there cannot be an 
effect without a cause, and why the poor fishermen's 
families starve in winter, and why the merchant has to 



The Harvests of the Ocean. 209 

wait so many more years before he can hope to build 
that house in Greenock or Liverpool, must now needs 
be told or guessed at. 

In the first place, there are now many more mer- 
chants, many more planters or middlemen, many more 
fishermen to divide a catch which has averaged pretty 
much of a muchness for many years past. In the second, 
the new styles of fishing, introduced on the principle of 
quick returns and devil take the hindmost, have done 
vast injury to the fisheries. In the good old times — 
really good in this wise — the proper sized fish only were 
taken with hook and line, at no injury to other fish in 
the waters. But, to carve a short road out to riches, 
first of all was brought in the cod-seine, which utterly 
destroys the chances of the legitimate hook and liners, 
if used anywhere near their ground ; and by it, more- 
over, tons of young small fish, useless for commerce, are 
cast out and thrown aside. ISText came in the bultow, 
which swept into its maw numbers of heavy mother- 
fish, at a consequence to the future which needs no 
further explanation. And lastly was introduced the 
infernal jigger, which, barbing and tearing among a 
shoal of fish, like a Malay running a-muck in a crowd, 
for every fish taken by it, possibly injures half a dozen 
others cruelly, and finally drives the whole lot, thoroughly 
frightened, from the bank. Verily, the goose with the 
eggs of gold is killed and cooked to perfection. 

Thus, it is not difficult to perceive that, in the cod- 
fishery — the great harvest and business of the country 
— it is, from first to last, a sort of pull-devil, pull-baker 



210 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

sort of system, the evils of which, accumulating for 
years, have now begun to be seriously felt. The fisher- 
man, with his family, eats his bread long before it is 
earned, and then struggles against nature to win a 
hopeless victory. Just as in the gambler's game of 
rouge et noir, every now and then great coups by a few 
individuals are made, exciting hundreds of others to try 
their luck ; yet the chances, as a standing quantity, 
being ever in favour of the " hell," the victims sooner 
or later are all cleaned out. So, under this sad system 
of undue credit and overwhelming charges, the very 
first hint of a falling house is the signal for the fisher- 
man's revenge upon his creditor ; and, like the rats in 
the sinking ship, he turns tail at once, and transfers his 
fish (already mortgaged) to another merchant, without 
scruple, for cash prices or a new credit, or sells it to the 
cute Yankee ever on- the watch along the banks for such 
a chance. 

Far out on the dark -blue waters, and even then 
almost too dazzling by the glory of its pure whiteness, 
floats an iceberg like the topsail of some fairy ship 
whose hull is hidden beneath the horizon. Looking 
northward from our pinnacle, here and there we see 
others gleaming in the rays of the setting sun, borne to 
the warmer south by the Arctic current, so fatal to our 
hopes of early summer ; but yet fraught, by the All- 
wise hand who adjusts the compensating balance of 
good and evil, with rich blessings for the land we stand 
on. It is the cold waters of this ocean-river which 
attracts the cold-blooded fish from southern latitudes to 



The Harvests of the Ocean. 211 

seek their more congenial abode up here. Often was it 
said in my hearing — " Ah, what a country this would 
be could the Gulf Stream but break upon our shores ! 
"Why — why does it turn away so enviously, so cruelly, 
just as its glowing lip touches our longing, sterile 
banks? Look at the undulating land, the hills, the 
streams, the long reaches of pasture ; and think what a 
beauty, what a glory might be here, if but the moist, 
warm breath of this great mother of life vivified creation 
into a higher state of activity ! " But the great Adjuster 
had other uses for the land and for the men wh<J were 
to dwell on it. True, the Gulf Stream would bring 
heat and corn, wine and cattle in abundance ; it might 
make the land in time " a land flowing with milk and 
honey ; " but the men could be no more fishers or 
gatherers-in of the great harvests of the sea, for there 
would be cone to gather here. These would have passed 
to other shores with the colder streams, and the world 
would have been all the poorer. The great products of 
the ocean-beds must be collected somewhere, and it has 
been ordered that it shall be done here, as of the har- 
vests of corn and wine in other countries. And see how 
wisely the circle of causes runs round, to keep, restore, 
and renew this balance of gifts for the use of man — ay, 
of all living creatures. The Arctic current, which now 
we are watching from the hill-top, turning aside the 
warm waters of the ocean-river, to bless and fecundate 
the coasts of Europe : that river, passing outward from 
the great cup of the Caribbean Sea filled to overflowing 
by the winds which press the surface of the Atlantic 



212 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

into a basin from which the guardian isthmus grants 
no escape : the winds, sucked hither to a focus from the 
colder north, to fill the vacant place ever left by the air, 
ascending from the surface of the two great divisions of 
the American continent, to rush toward the frozen poles : 
line upon line, curve upon curve, circle within circle of 
the wonderful machinery working harmoniously together 
upon the central pivot of the solar orb. See what a 
chain of links is here formed towards apparently one 
great end, yet connected with myriads of other chains 
encircling the universe, all apparently proceeding from 
the same source and working round the same pivot. 
Sun and ray, cold and heat, ever changing the specific 
gravity and condition of air and water, — causing vast 
currents in the elastic covering of the globe, and mighty 
ocean-rivers in opposite directions to pierce the waters 
which fill the great chasms between earth's continents. 
Little does the rude fisherman, now pitching out his 
spoils upon the flakes far beneath our feet, think what 
stupendous causes, acting through incomprehensible dis- 
tances, have brought them to his lines. Yet is the same 
vsat machinery at work ever and ever ; as ceaselessly 
and silently engaged in perfecting the life of the 
meanest blade of grass, as in providing for the luxury 
or welfare of the last and chief work of the Creator's 
hand ; to teach us that nothing resolves, nothing 
changes, throughout the universe, except through fixed, 
unalterable laws, of whose mysterious and mutual 
relations we have as yet discovered but the merest 
rudiments. 



The Harvests of the Ocean. 213 

Ably and straight to the point has a modern writer 
witnessed thus : * 

" In an age of physical research like the present, 
all highly-cultivated minds and duly advanced intel- 
lects have imbibed more or less the lessons of in- 
ductive philosophy, and have, at least in some mea- 
sure, learned to appreciate the grand foundation con- 
ception of universal law — to recognise the impossibility 
even of any two material atoms subsisting together 
without a determinate relation — of any action of the one 
or the other, whether of equilibrium or of motion, with- 
out reference to a physical cause — of any modification 
whatsoever in the existing conditions of material agents, 
unless through the invariable operation of a series of 
eternally -impressed consequences, following in some 
necessary chain of orderly connection, however imper- 
fectly known to us. 

" This operation of a series of eternally-impressed con- 
sequences could hardly be described more graphically 
or forcibly than in the following words of a great Ger- 
man philosopher : ' Let us imagine, for instance, this 
grain of sand lying some few feet farther inland than 
it actually does. Then must the storm- wind that drove 
it in from the seashore have been stronger than it 
actually was. Then must the preceding state of the 
atmosphere, by which the wind was occasioned and its 
degree of strength determined, have been different from 
what it actually was, and the previous changes which 

* Quoted from Professor Mansel's Essay on Miracles in "Aids to 
Faith." 



214 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

gave rise to this particular weather, and so on. We 
must suppose a different temperature from that which 
really existed, and a different constitution of the bodies 
which influenced this temperature. The fertility or 
barrenness of countries, the duration of the life of man, 
depend unquestionably, in a great degree, on tempera- 
ture. How can you know — since it is not given us to 
penetrate the arcana of nature, and it is therefore 
allowable to speak of possibilities — how can you know 
that in such a state of the weather as we have been 
supposing, in order to carry this grain of sand a few 
yards farther, some ancestor of yours might not have 
perished from hunger, or cold, or heat, long before the 
birth of that son from whom you are descended ; that 
thus you might never have been at all ; and all that 
you have done, and all that you ever hope to do in this 
world, must have been hindered, in order that a grain 
of sand might lie in a different place.' " 

Thus, then, it is (setting on one side the other great 
consideration in the power of the mind over matter), 
that just as the grain of sand by causes traced back 
and acting under fixed compensating laws, lies just 
where it has been directed by the force of those laws, 
so by the same balance of power the hand of Providence, 
which created these laws, is, by their operation, checking 
the ultimate ruin of this country, even by its apparent 
ruin at this moment. The fatal desire for rapid wealth, 
which hitherto has driven its merchants away from their 
social duties, must soon give place to a more healthy desire 
for promoting the good of the place in which the prime 



The Harvests of the Ocean. 215 

of their days is passed, even though it should come to 
pass by attending to their own business and comforts. 
So long as the fisheries brought enormous profits there 
was no hope for the country, for no one of the higher 
classes looked to it as a " home" " Lightly come lightly 
go, a jolly game all round," said a rubicund merchant 
in my hearing in the ante-room of the House of Assembly. 
" And," continued the worthy legislator, laughing and 
rubbing his hands together, " if my boats'-loads offish 
don't come in, my son is pretty sure to pick up some- 
body else's at sea." 

Even apart from all other consideration of eventual 
good, little pity on account of the failure of their trade 
do the merchants of Fish-and-fog-land deserve. For 
years and years they have drawn away their wealth 
and influence from the place, returning few tithes of 
gratitude to the Great Giver of their prosperity ; doing 
little or nothing for the public good, and separating 
themselves as from a contaminated community as soon 
as possible. Thus while men of any education fly to 
happier lands, you may see here a good many with 
thousands upon thousands who cannot even write their 
own names ; and the great masses of the fish gamblers, 
poverty-stricken from the first check, unable to rise 
in the great human scale generation after generation. 
The system strikes at the root of all that is right or 
elevating, and keeps the standard of public opinion, if 
indeed such a thing can be said to exist at all, at its 
very lowest mark. 

This, then, was our discourse upon the apex of Signal 






121 (> Lost Amid the Fogs. 

Hill, overlooking the harbour, while the last beams of 
the departed sun lingered over the western horizon ; 
the beauty of the scene spread before us as on a map ; 
the great harvests of the ocean proceeding by fixed 
yet incomprehensible laws for the food of man ; and the 
means of defending this, the great fish granary, from 
invasion. Heavily the moisture from a cloudless sky 
condensed itself into drops of diamond dew upon the 
spearlike grasses, as we descended from the rocky heights, 
making the vardure of the garden and the sweetness of 
the mignionette for the moment by contrast a thousand 
times more grateful to the senses. Ice and snow and 
frost are at last forgotten things. We say we can never 
tire of walking round by the soft moonlight, amid all 
the blossoming fruits, and climbing blessings, almost 
unfolding visibly as we look upon their beauty. Now 
is the time for the country, we all agree ; "let us go and 
see it," is passed by an unanimous vote, and a picnic 
party for the next day is formed upon the spot. 

On either side of the city of St John's, stretching in 
a semi-circle along the rugged coast, at an average 
radius from the centre of seven or eight miles, a number 
of little fishing coves, or bays, attract, during the sweet 
and enjoyable summer, all persons who can command 
the use of a horse to revel in their beauties. Each 
little bay is but a slice of the high cliffs scooped out 
by the friction of the mighty pressure of the Atlantic 
waves ; and leading down to its shingled beach, each 
boasts of a lovely green valley through which infallibly 
a tumbling, noisy trout burn pours back the waters 






The Harvests of the Ocean. 217 

evaporated from the parent surface. Many were the 
pleasant evening drives and picnics we enjoyed in those 
charming spots. By one o'clock the carriages were* 
marshalled in front of Fort William, at Bakehouse 
corner, and the signal given for a start. The blue 
sleepy waters of the sweet lake, as we passed across 
the King's Bridge at Quiddi-Viddi, might alone have 
tempted us to stop with their all-sufficient gladness ; 
but another mile up hill, and then another across the 
Ballyhaly bogs, covered with wild calmias, azaleas, 
Indian tea-plants, and a hundred others unknown by 
name at least to me, among which the young snipe 
were preparing for the sportsman's gun, brought us 
to the gates of Virginia Water, the former summer 
residence of the governors of Newfoundland. At the 
entrance of the dark avenue a rapid rivulet ran busily 
across the road, from the shades of a dense wood of 
firs, beeches, and birches, which quite concealed the 
lake from passers on the road. It is a sheet of deep 
water, about three miles in circumference, indented 
with little grass-edged bays, fringed and feathered to 
the limpid edge with dark dense woods. Often of a 
still summer evening, watching the musk-rats cut their 
lines along the glassy surface as they swam to the 
opposite groves, did I think what a site for a house 
might this be for a man with means at his command 
to do the thing well. His skating-rink in winter, his 
miniature Killarney in summer, the boat-house in the 
little sheltered bend, trout-fishing, pleasure-grounds and 
garden, wooded hills and autumn shooting, conservatory 






218 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

and orchard bouses, all dependent on skill now well 
understood in its application; returning to the old 
country, say from February to May, while the seasons 
shifted and reformed themselves; and above all the 
revolutions and improvements among social things 
which he might create about him. What a pleasant 
field for a man of means, taste, and energy ! How 
different a life from rotting idle in the suburbs of 
Liverpool or Greenock, on the gains of a land drained 
away from their natural outlets ! 

Thus the dark woods of Virginia on the left, and to 
the right the undrained flower-covered flats of Bally- 
haly, are passed by, when, from a gentle rise we look 
back over both to catch the last glimpse of the dark 
hills round the harbour, crowned with the ever-to-be-seen 
towers of the Catholic Cathedral. Over the brow of 
this hill we turn sharply to the right, down a sheltered 
fir-lined avenue, where the long trailing branches of the 
cone-shaped spruces, intermingled with the graceful 
lady birches, might almost tempt a new-born Ovid to 
sing of fairy transformations, and weeping women 
awaiting a return to human shape and semblance. 
Here and there glints of golden buttercupped meadows 
break for an instant between the dark walls of green ; 
and as the narrow road winds we catch a few inches of 
cobalt far beyond, of purple cliffs crowned, as they 
always are on a bright day such as this, with that mys- 
terious indefinable haze of gladness which hovers over 
the union of earth and sea. Out of the dark avenue a 
zigzag path, leading of course to a noisy boulder-be- 



The Harvests of the Ocean. 219 

wildered stream, descends in a gap of the great cliffs to 
the water ; and when we crossed the rickety wooden 
bridge, near the shanties in the hollow, the sea in all 
its beauty at Logie Bay burst suddenly upon us. In 
the feeble shelter, afforded by the projection of the cliffs 
in a shallow arc, is one of the many little outlying fish- 
ing communities who supply the merchants with their 
produce. Here, in the summer only, live the fishers 
and their families, in huts and shanties of turf and 
boughs intermingled, erected on the sward on the edge 
of the smooth rocks close to the flakes, where they un- 
ceasingly watch the drying and curing of the fish. 
This, if not attended to, and covered in from a passing 
shower, would be utterly spoilt. Ah ! it is delicious, in 
this hot summer noontide, to sit under the shade of a 
huge boulder, and watch the leap of the rivulet over 
the last ledge of rocks into the briny ocean. Beneath 
our feet, in the chasm, the spray of the little waterfall 
has charmed the fronds of the bright green ferns into 
larger life and beauty ; and tiny feet risk tumbles and 
slips to pluck them from their niches in the rocks. 
Before us, in the vast expanse of soft hazy ocean blue, 
the white sails of the fishing smacks chequer the surface 
thickly; while here and there the spout of a whale 
makes the children cry with wonder at the seeming 
mystery of the upheaved waters. A long line of cork- 
jointed netting, undulating like a snake by the lift and 
fall of the sluggish wave, stretches along the arc of the 
bay from cliff to cliff; and before we leave, many a 
lovely specimen of the silver-guarded king of fish is 



220 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

offered for sale. Down in the boot of the carriage, 
tenderly covered with ferns and grasses, we stow away 
a noble salmon for to-morrow's breakfast, just as the 
signal is given by our leader for a fresh start to the 
other bays of the adjacent coast. 

Over the hills at the back of the great cliffs, past field 
and homestead plucked from the wild fruit-bearing 
barrens, and down again by a winding road, garnished 
thickly with copse of birch and pine; until we meet 
the merry stream at the bottom of the vale, where the 
great cliffs again fell back to let the curious sea 
come and take a nearer view of earth's glory within. 
Here, between the sheltering sides of Middle Cove, 
the Atlantic waves tumble everlastingly on a pebbly 
beach ; while (something like a huge monster with 
open mouth and gaping jaws) between the cliffs is 
stretched a web of flakes in intricate mazy con- 
fusion. Fish, — fish, — fish, is the only thought of 
the fishermen's brains in summer time, with here and 
there a glance after the pig, fed, alack ! on the fish offal 
with which the pebbles under the flakes are thickly 
larded. We look around in vain for the trim gardens 
which should be here in a dell, bright as an emerald 
with nature's sweetest colours, inviting man in speaking 
living words to come and seek her gifts. In vain she 
cries ; there is a possibly shorter road to wealth, or at 
least coarse food at their doors, and to that alone they 
turn. 

Under the network of interlacing flakes, amid a crowd 
of hungry curs and pigs fighting for the fish-waste fes- 






The Harvests of the Ocean. 221 

tering in heaps, we pushed for the pure bright air of the 
wide free beach, and there beheld a sight especial to 
these shores. The sea, locked between the arms of the 
cliffs and far out towards the curved horizon as eye 
could reach, was alive with fish, which had actually 
taken the very place of the waters. The harvest of the 
capling, a little fellow about six inches long something 
between a smelt and a silver eel, had set in, and stu- 
pendous was the multitude of fish. When the lift of 
the wave touched or receded from the pebbly beach, 
boys and girls gathered in the spoil as fast as they had 
strength; while farther up towards the flakes huge 
mounds of the wriggling glittering fish awaited carting 
inland. It was literally here the old story of the man 
who could open oysters faster than another could eat 
them. Here they actually caught fish before our eyes 
a hundred times faster than they could be carted 
away ! 

" Would yer honner buy a bucket-full ? "- cried an 
urchin in natural knickerbockers, who wielded an old 
butter-tub with a string, like David armed to meet 
Goliah. In went the would-be bucket among the surf 
as far as the string could reach, and was instantly hauled 
back full of quivering fish. 

" Shall I take them up to yer honner 's carriage for 
two coppers," pursued the urchin ; while fifty others all 
along the stretch of beach cast in their tubs or buckets, 
and pitched the harvest in heaps above high water 
mark. The little beggars ran out into the surf, and 
stood up to their hips, not in water but in fish ; ay, of 



222 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

the numbers of the multitudes, now for hundreds of 
miles round the coast of Fish-and-fog-land, no man 
could presume to guess within scores of scores of mil- 
lions. 

Where they come from, these awful shoals of ani- 
mated creatures, to spread their eggs upon every shallow 
bit of water round these shores, or whither the vast 
numbers of survivors go, no one knows ; few care. The 
poorest at this time are gorged with the delicate food ; 
the whales, cod, and mackerel swallow huge quantities ; 
and heaps upon heaps are spread broadcast over the 
fields for manure, a practice as stupid as it is short- 
sighted. Nature, careful of her gifts and riches, never 
intended the harvest of life to be used to so vile and 
wasteful a purpose, without first undergoing prepara- 
tions by other necessary transitions. The farmer, by 
using the fish as a manure, enriches his pastures for a 
season, but impoverishes the ground rapidly ; while, in 
revenge for the outrage, vast myriads of insects, grubs, 
and caterpillars, are developed from the putrid soil, 
suddenly over-enriched, and which soon spread havoc 
wholesale in fields and gardens on every side. 

Not homeward yet ; for when we strike again the 
turn down into Logie Bay, by which we have completed 
our gero, the carriages with one accord diverge into a 
gate and cross the rise of a field, until they pull up at 
the doors of a whitewashed cottage on the edge of a fir 
grove facing the distant city. Scattered all about the 
field, many of our party were already busy among the 
crannies of the rocks, searching out from their fairy 



The Harvests of the Ocean. 223 

haunts the wild strawberries, too easily revealed by their 
blushing beauty in the slanting rays of the setting sun. 
Under the deep shadows of the firs, a rough table 
groaned with tea, hot cake, and golden cream to match 
the fragrant fruit ; around, the broad fronds of the 
tender ferns, intermingled with stars of Bethlehem and 
many other flowers, all in the tremble of a gentle sym- 
phony of happiness to the departing breeze of evening. 
It was a spot where, at such a moment, one might in 
very happiness cast off the cares and dust of busy life at 
the echo of the children's voices clown in the deep of the 
woods, joyous with the prizes of the modest fruit. 
G-od only knows what secret cares and sins rankled 
in the hearts of those around that merry table : we 
ourselves only knew them cast away for those moments 
of our too quickly passing joy. Even in that Fish- 
and-fog-land, so far far away from the thoughts of the 
poet when he wrote the lines, we could sing with him 
of our summer evening thus : — 

" Oh ! then the heart seems hushed, afraid to beat 
In the deep absence of all other sound ; 
And home is sought with loath and lingering feet, 
As if that shining track of fairy ground, 
Once left and lost, should never more be found. 
And happy seems the life which gipsies lead, 
TVho spread their tents where mossy nooks abound ; 
In nooks where unplucked wild flowers shed their seed : 
A canvas-spreading tent the only roof they need." 

Sic transit ; even like all other things terrestial. The 
deep shades of the solemn firs blend earth, and flower. 



224 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

and tree, together in mingled gloom, whence, down in 
the far recesses, came back now and then the ringing 
laughter of the maids and children. Just as the horses 
were putting to, in they came, fern-crowned, with fra- 
grant blossoms drooping from every hat. There was 
some little dispute among them as to the merits of the 
Atalanta of the group ; when, amid the babel of friendly 
repartees, a young lady of some eighteen summers, pre- 
tending to stand on her dignity, exclaimed, 

" Bah ! if I get one minute's start, no one shall catch 
me before I return to the carriage." 

" Done with you, Miss Kate," returned a smart young 
fellow, ready enough at such a chance ; while the clap- 
ping of hands at the novelty of the race almost started 
the sober nags out of their propriety. 

So out came the watches with minute hands ready to 
do their part, and at the word " start," off she flew, 
vanishing like a sprite into the gloom. Sixty seconds 
after, away sped the pursuer, and he too vanished out of 
sight. Five, ten minutes passed, the ladies chatted, 
the horses pawed the turf. Another quarter of an hour 
and then another. We grew impatient; the ladies 
fractious. Then we began to shout, until the woods 
rang with the dull echoes of our voices. Not a sign of 
response from the truants. Another half hour, and the 
cry was, " What was to be done ? " It was a beautiful 
star-light night, but the woods were as dark as pitch. 
We lighted pine torches, and began shouting and ex- 
ploring the paths, but all in vain ; and when we returned 
to the carriages the ladies could stand it no longer. 






The Harvests of the Ocean. 225 

" What a strange girl !" said one. 

" So extremely inconsiderate/' cried another. 

" Can she possibly be drowned ?" suggested a third. 

" Impossible, ma'am ; there is no pond about this 
place," said the farmer's wife. 

" Perhaps she has struck her head against a tree, 
and is unable to rise." 

" Then surely he would have returned for help." 

It was very mysterious, very. But we could not stop 
there all night, so at halt-past eleven, the women, full 
of sinister forebodings, beat a retreat, and not knowing 
exactly what to say to the friends of the lost girl, drove 
straight to her door : when, lo ! to our amazement and 
consternation, there she stood, while round the back of 
the shrubberies, by another gate, there sneaked off a 
figure uncommonly like that of the gentleman-pur- 
suer. With the most charming innocence she expressed 
surprise at our late return, and when asked to explain 
where she had been, naively said, " Oh ! we had a long 
chase, — so long you can't think, — and you know he 
caught me just at the end of the wood ; so we thought 
you had all gone, and that we had better walk home, 
you know ; such a lovely night, we quite enjoyed it." 

Not a doubt of it ! poor stupid owls that we were, not 
to understand the dodge before this. But it didn't sur- 
prise me, some short time after, to hear a lady say to 
another, " Do you know, my dear, they say that Lizzie 

W is engaged to Mr H ! who 'd a thought 

it?" 

" Why, any one 3 ma'am, who had seen that fictitious 

p 






226 Lost Amid tJie Fogs. 

chase in the dark wood, and the summer moonlight 
walk across Virginia Wood afterwards ; if that wasn't 
enough to settle a man's hash with a pretty girl, the 
deuce and all's in it, ma'am ; and we were precious green 
not to see it all before."' 

Yes ; this is summer in Newfoundland ; when we 
taboo the fish and fogs very cheerily, and think the 
ferny dells, if not so grand, yet fresher with Atlantic 
dews than any other valleys of earth. If, with its 
brightness, there are drawbacks (for the sparks fly 
upwards everywhere), still, thank heaven, we know 
nothing of the suffocating siroccos, the stifling dust- 
storms, the hard, dry east winds, the blasting breath of 
the simoom, which desolate other and sunnier lands. 
And if the compensating balance of God's providence 
in good and evil was poised for this green Erin across 
the Atlantic, the scale of blessings would, in the judg- 
ment of considerate discerning men, preponderate 
against the cup of miseries, largely in favour of the 
dwellers in the often lost land of Fish-and-fog. 





CHAPTER XIV. 



AUTUMN — THE FIRST DAY OF THE SEASON. 




UEELY this is spring ! " would exclaim a 
stranger from the old country, as he 
looked at the peas and scarlet-runners 
in full bloom. " Nay," might reply 
another, busy among the strawberry-beds, " it is surely 
summer ! " Yet it is autumn all the same, with spring 
and summer so closely left behind that they are inter- 
mingled pleasantly yet confusedly together. It is the 
time for especial enjoyment to Wolfe and myself, and, 
alack the day ! to too many others such as us. For 
the grouse are reported strong on the wing along the 
upland breezy barrens ; and about the end of August 
we are very busy preparing to give them an early 
call. 

It is at last come to the evening before the eventful 
day of the year, the 25th of August, on which the 
Legislature has directed that grouse-shooting should 
commence; the only precaution (unhappily) as yet 
taken for the protection of this noble game. The sun 
was descending behind the purple hills amid bands of 



228 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

gold and red, tinting all round with the gladness of 
a fair to-morrow ; and the brown face of my friend 
Wolfe was bent deep in thought against the lintel of 
my little garden-wicket. The inner consultation was 
indeed momentous, being no less than concerning the 
route we should follow for the first day's shooting, a 
great number of considerations influencing the decision. 

" 1 think," said he, looking up at last, "we'd better 
take the Cody's Well ground, and shoot down towards 
Tor Bay." 

"Very good; but you know that Grant and 
Thompson are gone to encamp out there, and are sure 
to be before us." 

"Umph! it's no use going to the Three-Pond" 
Barrens, or the Deer's Marsh, or Petty Harbour. I 
know twenty parties going to each. What do you say 
to Broad Cove ? " 

" Splendid ! but an awful road part of the way to 
get at it ; better take something easier first of all, so 
as to be early on the ground, — that 's the main point." 

" Then let 's try Flat Rock, and we can pick up Jem 
Strongback on the way ; he knows every inch of the 
ground, and we could hardly do better than take the first 
day with him. I spoke to him about a month ago." 

This settled, the burly form of my friend slowly 
vanished in the gloaming under the shadow of the 
balsam-poplars which lined the road towards his house. 
Less than six hours after, before the deep violet of the 
White Hills shaded into a distinctive hue of their own, 
we met again. He was standing in his porch with 



Autumn — The First Bay of the Season. 229 

dog and gun, waiting for the phaeton. It was worth 
this rise before dawn to see the sparkle in Hover's eye, 
responsive to the heavy flap of his tail upon the ground, 
as he waited the order to jump in and coil himself 
away beneath our feet. Five minutes to pack the 
trap snugly with ammunition and basket of prog ; stow 
Green, my man, and the dog behind ; and then away 
we go down across the King's Bridge, with a sniff of 
the dews and fogs brooding heavy over the lake, and 
four miles on over hilly ground, past the little farms 
all fast in sleep, till pulling up at Jem's, we saw his 
little gig ready, and his dogs all yelping for a start. 
Jem Strongback was a sort of mixture of farmer and 
publican, with a dash of the fisherman in his composi- 
tion, and a capital shot into the bargain ; the more 's 
the pity, as he was well known to be a sad destroyer 
of game out of season. He was an Englishman, and 
a hardworking, simple sort of fellow, about forty years 
of age, turning his hand at something or other to support 
an enormous string of olive-branches. All the summer 
he took in cattle by contract from the butchers of the 
city to fatten on the rich grasses of the wild barrens, 
at so much a head : so as these hundreds of beasts 
roamed where they pleased over the vast leas, moors, 
bogs, and woods ; Jem knew every inch of the country, 
and in his continual wanderings after stray cattle (for 
which if lost he had to pay) found out the haunts of 
every brood and covey of grouse, and every snipe's 
nest in the peninsula. Not that Mister Jem always 
showed us the cream of these golden spots ; but who 






230 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

could blame a man with his living dependant on this 
knowledge ? Moreover, Jem was a liberal, honest fellow 
enough ; and here he was at his doorway on the instant 
at the sound of the wheels, his broad face ruddy with 
the reflection of the great wood tire therein, over which, 
quite regardless, he had evidently been filling a powder- 
flask, still in his hand with the top unscrewed. 

" Get down, gentlemen, get down. Jim, hold to the 
horse. Come in and take a cup of tea and an egg. 
I 'm short of caps ; that rascal of a boy, Jim, was after 
the snipe yesterday, down the hollow along. I 'd orders 
for two dozen for Mrs Mare, and he 's fired all away on 
me. Have ye ere a few ye can spare ? I 'm thankful 
to ye, sir/' 

" Well, Jem, what do you say ? shall we take the 
Flat Kock ground ? " 

" No better, no better ! them barchies over the rise 
of the hill beyond the pond has eight coveys, if there ? s 
one. Down Ponto, down I say ; Juno lass shall have 
a bit. Look at her, gentlemen, there's a skin on her 
like silk ; ye never saw a little pointer with a truer 
nose. It'll be a grand morning when the sun's up, 
and we 's better be moving along." 

" I 've brought my setter, Eover, you know," said 
Wolfe. "Two dogs will be quite enough." 

u Well, then, I '11 be after taking Juno ; a pointer 's 
better on a hot day, though there's plenty of water 
everywhere. Hie up, lassie. Jack, catch up Ponto, 
and shut him up. All ready, gentlemen." 

Poor Ponto ! what a miserable, long-drawn howl it 



Autumn — The First Day of the Season. 231 

was which stung our ears as we drove off. He knew 
just as well as we did that it was the first day of the 
season, and his true setter's heart had just been beating 
fifty to the dozen at the thoughts of the sport. It was 
a mercy to get under the lee of the grove of pines to 
shut out such distress from sympathising ears, and to 
urge the steeds last over the five miles between Jem's 
house and the steep hill which winds down into the 
village of Tor Bay. At the bridge, over the noisy stream 
which bisects the deep valley, the road forks ; the left 
running up into a great barren towards Portugal Cove, 
and the right, which we followed, leaning still coast- 
wise. Just as we sprung the opposite rise, Jem shouted 
back from his gig — 

; " Hark to 'em, sir ! hark to em ! pull up a minute/' 

The weak report of a gun, and then another, about 
two miles distant, came murmuring down the glen. 

"Hark to 'em, sir! that's the Doctor's party; they 
must have camped out on the Cody's Well ground, and 
they 11 take the Indian-meal Barrens. They can't see 
yet, but they're trying the guns, to make all right. Go 
ahead, sir." 

Some fifteen minutes after this we turned to the left 
into a narrow rutty path, which led up the slope of the 
hill, thickly fringed with overhanging spruces and 
brushwood, all dank and dropping with heavy dew. 
About a mile of this natural shower-bath, brought 
another signal from Jem for a halt ; the word to un- 
harness was given, and we jumped out on a lovely bit 
of sward among the thickets. The dogs and guns 






232 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

seemed to shake themselves together by magic. Green, 
my man, had orders to find a camping-ground near a 
rill of water — no difficult matter in Fish-and-fog-land 
— and to have the kettle boiling by ten o'clock. Then 
spoke up Jem Strongback with authority — 

"Now, Kiurnal, d'ye see the bare head of the hill 
above the bushes? we'll take all round that before 
breakfast ; it 's all open, lovely ground up there : hie in 
good dogs ; steady, now, Juno lass, steady ! " 

It might have been a third of a mile through the 
wood, wetted through and through by the dripping- 
ferns, while every now and then the sharp warning 
" kiar-kiar," of an old cock bristled every nerve with 
excitement, when the taller timber began to give place 
to a smaller more open undergrowth, and the white 
rock to be bare, save of the blue-berries and raspberries 
in the. little chinks and knolls round its base. "Easy 
now," cried Jem, " easy now all ; let the dogs hunt 
round a bit." 

" Hist ! " cried Wolfe, " hist ! the dogs are drawing ; 
steady, Kover, steady." 

Is there a lovelier sight in all nature than to watch 
the faithful and intelligent servants of man, true to 
their instincts, exerting their innate, unseen gifts in his 
favour ? Mark their quivering nerves, stiffening to the 
tips of their tails as the scent grows hotter, then paus- 
ing, thoughtful, or advancing step by step, towards the 
covey, concealed yet surely felt ! 

Bound the gray rock they led us slowly, with fingers on 
the trigger, and then stood like the rock itself, a picture 



Autumn — The First Day of the Season. 233 

for the sculptor ; right fore-paw balanced lightly, and 
every other limb and muscle rigid as a statue. The 
silence was sepulchral for that long long minute, until 
the very brain seemed dizzy with the strain ; when — 

" Whirr, whirr, whirr, whirr," on all sides ; and the 
bang, bang, bang, of six muzzles dissolved the painful 
spell. 

For my part I saw nothing but a cloud of white, 
rising in the low blue-berries between us and the brush- 
wood and whirling like lightning round the base of the 
rock. I fired, but with what result I knew no more 
than Adam. Not so with Wolfe and Jem. 

" I covered one, I 'm certain," cried Wolfe. 

t£ Oh ! there must be a brace and a half of 'em in 
the trees ; faith, I saw one tumble," rejoined Mister 
Jem. 

' ' How many were there ? " 

" Fourteen, and the old cock, I believe ; we ought to 
have had three brace ; a splendid rise ! " 

" Good dog, Kover/' cried Wolfe, as soon as he was 
reloaded ; " seek, find, good dog." 

" Hi in, Juno, lassie ! seek him out," chimed in Jem ; 
but not a feather could be discovered. The fact is, that 
the covey in the rise had wheeled suddenly round the 
rock, and we had all fired behind them. There was, of 
course, a great deal of protestation about birds lost, and 
then we thought it best to move on. 

Quietly over the open behind the rock, stealing, 
crunching down the low fruit-laden bushes, and watch- 
ing every sign of the dogs ; suddenly, about two hun- 



234 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

dred yards on, Juno pointed to the right, and instantly 
again to the left. 

" Hist ! " cried Jem ; " spread out a bit ; the covey 's 
scattered here, and may be we '11 pick 'em all up. D'ye 
hear the old cock bawling ? " 

" Whirr ! " from beneath his very feet, as he spoke, 
rose a bird, which he tumbled over ; and at the report 
of his gun another, and another, which all fell to our 
mark ; I missing my second barrel, and Wolfe wiping 
me neatly in a long shot. Just as the lower limb of 
the red sun rose over the horizon, our first birds of the 
season were stowed in our bags. 

Over the woody crest of the hill, from knoll to knoll, 
we beat the ground carefully, rising four more coveys 
within a mile or so, and picking eight or ten birds out 
of them ; when Kover, stopping short beneath a clump 
of birches on the edge of the copse, began circling round 
and round, until Juno took up the hot scent in the 
same way, without making anything of it. At last Jem 
called them off, "Gone, gone, Juno lass — gone I say. 
Captain, you call off Kover — he wont mind me." But 
not a bit of it ; the dogs began increasing the circle of 
range, the scent if possible growing hotter, when sud- 
denly Kover started straight off at right angles to a 
clump of raspberries, fifty yards away, and there stood 
like a rock. At the sound of our approach, a mag- 
nificent old cock rose to wing, with a " Ca, ca, ca," and 
was tumbled over by Wolfe or Jem, both claiming the 
bird. It was worth claiming, for a more splendid 
handful was never picked up. The scarlet tips over his 



Autumn — The First Day of the Season. 235 

eyes glistened like rubies, and his rich brown and 
purple plumage, with a tip of white here and there, 
from the glossy head to the spray feathers on his toes, 
bespoke the fine condition of the noble game. With 
what a thud the fellow came to mother earth, and what 
a handful he was to pick up ! Stuff him into the bag 
over your broad shoulders, Wolfe, my friend ; three or 
four brace of those beauties will make you smile again, 
as you breast the hill when the sun is up. 

" Where the deuce and all is Juno ? " cried Jem. 
" She 's on a bird, and I Ye never seed her since Kover 
pointed the old cock. I'll tell you what it is, that old 
varmint has led us away from the covey, and Juno 's on 
'em." 

" Hi in, Kover, good clog ! hark back here ; seek 'em 

out." 

We were standing in an " open" of low ankle-deep 
shrubs, mingled with seed-grasses, mosses, wild straw- 
berries, and creeper-covered stones, all surrounded by 
knots of firs and lady birches, thickly fringed with 
drooping dewy ferns ; and the dog, after snuffing 
around with nose high in air, led us through the thickest 
of the screen towards a rock, whose gray head was 
just visible over the highest branches. The boughs of 
the spruces were so close and tough that it was difficult 
to follow the dog ; but at last we had our reward. On 
the nether edge Jem stopped with finger up, pointing 
with intense admiration to his beauty Juno, transformed 
into a marble Niobe. In and out among the stones and 
small brushwood ran a number of grouse-chicks, about 



2.36 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

a fortnight old, following the eager call of the mother, 
whose feathers shone like frosted silver in the slanting 
beams of the rising sun. It was as pretty a sight as 
one might well see on a shooting-tramp, and not the 
least to watch the eye of the dog, doubtless puzzled at 
our inaction at what, no doubt, she thought a wonderful 
chance. Probably the first brood had perished from 
wet or vermin, and the brave parents had set to work to 
rear another. The little ones ran round our feet quite 
fearlessly, and chirupped there, until the mother, hop- 
ping from stone to stone, wooed them away into the 
thicket ; while we, whistling to the dogs, turned away 
in another direction, with a sad regret that the sapient 
old cock had fallen a victim to his paternal love and 
instinct. 

Delicious as was the work and walk while the sun 
remained low, yet, when the dew was fairly lapped up 
from the grasses and ferns, the thermometer of our 
enjoyment gradually subsided, and at the same rate the 
birds disappeared. Wise in their own way, they sought 
the thick impenetrable spruce covers for shelter ; and 
the light open birches and brushwood, their favourite 
haunts morning and evening, were deserted. After ten 
o'clock, by which time the heat was almost insupport- 
able, we never saw a feather. The dogs began to flag 
visibly ; and the moment we stopped to consult- about 
our way among the tangled paths of the thicket, lay 
down at our feet with heaving sides and panting 
tongues. 

"It's no good any more now," cried Jem. " Gentle- 



Autumn — The First Day of the Season. 237 

men. if ye '11 stop here a minute I'll climb up that bit 
of a hill and lot)k out for Green's fire." 

Three minutes after we saw him on the top of the 
rock looking eagerly around seawards; then came a 
holloa to us, while his hand pointed the direction we 
were to take. In half an hour, from the crest of a 
bluff, we saw the blue smoke curling out of that vast 
sea of bush, and soon reached the little camping- 
ground, which had been well selected by Master Green. 
It lay under the lee of a huge moss-covered boulder, 
above which the spruces and lady-birches trembled in 
the breeze ; while round its base there curled the clearest 
of rills, springing out of the ferns on the rise above. 
Before us the eye swept over hill and barren, meadow, 
copse, and loch, to the fishing-hamlets on the bluff 
coast, where the white- washed cottages confused them- 
selves in the burning haze with the fishers' sails out on 
the opal sea beyond. Our little baskets of prog — hard- 
boiled eggs, cold tongue, fowl, and sandwiches, with a 
screw of salt — lay ready open, and the kettle on the 
embers gave out the fragrant essence of tea. We 
allowed no beer or wine on these expeditions until the 
sun was gone down; and Green had as much as he 
could well do to get a mouthful in the intervals of 
passing round the hissing kettle to us three hungry 
and thirsty hunters. But as all things come to an end, 
so did this luxury. Wolfe and Jem began to load their 
pipes, and, of course, to fight the morning's work over 
again. Every bird that had risen was discussed amid a 
little friendly jeering and jealousy. Amid that clatter, 



238 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

my head resting on a mossy stone, somehow one began 
to fancy that, across the haze of the burning air, the 
white boats of the fishermen, in the far distance, were 
wheeling together in a mazy dance. That was the last 
idea, ere the drowsy god passed his hand across the 
scene and shut it out. of view. 

One, two, three, four hours ! impossible to believe, 
yet, looking at the sun, it must so have been. What 
was it startled us in our doze ? for Wolfe was leaning 
on his elbow, looking eagerly about, and Jem, with his 
hand across his eyebrows, was peering right and left 
across the horizon. Ah ! is that it ? With a wild 
scream a flight of curlew, following their leader in 
wedge-like flight, dashed past almost over our heads ; 
then wheeling here, there, and round and round as they 
distanced, pitched on the bare brow of a barren hill 
about half a mile off. 

" My stars ! " cried Jem ; " catch up the dogs, Green ; 
hold 'em tight, and don't let 'em stir. Come on, sir, — 
come on ; we '11 'count for some of them chaps. Bully 
for me, but there 's a flock of turkey ones ■! " 

Down the hill we rushed full tear, and through the 
matted brushwood, until brought up sharp by the 
stream which roars and tumbles through the gorge. 
It was something to consider how to pass the whirling 
waters — deeper than the knee, and maddened by ob- 
structing boulders. While we hesitated, glancing round 
for a good spot, Jem was on the grass clutching at his 
stockings. 



Autumn — The First Day of the Season. 239 

" Faix," cried he, " I wish we had the Bishop here, 
to give us a hoist over." 

" The Bishop ! what on earth do 3*011 mean ? " 

" I mane the Bishop, gentlemen — Bishop Field — and 
nothing hut him. I heard of one of my friends, who 
was out with him and the clargy, down the coast, on a 
confirming business ; they was walking across from one 
station to another, when suddenly they comes to a 
stream like this, I take it. None of the parsons would 
cross. It looked nasty. So clown went the Bishop on 
the stones, whips off his gaiters and socks, and turns 
round quite gaily — 'Now then, gentlemen,' says he, 
( which of ye will I lift over first ? ' They had to face 
it after that ; and it very nigh swept them all off." 

Could we do less than the Bishop ? or follow the 
example of Jem's happy hit? In two minutes, with 
linked arms, we were battling amid the boulders, and 
in five more breasting the opposite slopes, until at last, 
pretty well blown, we stand steaming under the spot 
on which we guess the quarry had pitched. 

" Easy, gentlemen ; down on your knees — creep up — 
don't show," whispered Jem hoarsely, as he glided from 
stone to stone and from bush to bush, until he reached 
the very crest of the brow. His head was just on a 
level, and he was drawing the gun up stealthily to the 
poise, when away they all went about seventy yards 
ahead with a scream and a joyous whistle, contemptuous 
as it was shrill. Jem wiped his streaming forehead, and 
i: darned 'em all " heartily in true colonial style. Many 



240 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

a chevy after the wary beggars I had afterwards, and 
never bagged one — no, not one. I could never manage 
to get within range, although about this time they are 
plentiful on the high barrens, flying from their breeding- 
grounds in the north of Newfoundland and Labrador to 
the swamps of Louisiana and Florida. But the boys of 
the town would sometimes stalk them successfully, for 
the little scamps could creep behind stones and stumps, 
which were " foolishness " to me or Wolfe. They gener- 
ally found their way then to the hospitable table of the 
Governor. " Colonel/' I fancy I hear the old gentleman 
saying now, "Let me send you one of these; ye ne'er 
tasted a better, 1 11 be sworn." Heigho ! for the past ; 
those were great birds, indeed, and so were the days 
when we ate them. 

The word was given to go back for the dogs, and we 
faced the dense thickets again with parched mouths, 
after our useless climb. It was heavy work casting 
aside the tough branches ; the sun was hot enough still 
to make such exertion unpleasant ; yet, for all that, it 
made a little surprise, which there befell us, all the 
sweeter. Suddenly we burst through into a little clear- 
ing, not more than twenty yards across, in which there 
stood two or three wild cherry-trees loaded with fruit — 
perhaps such fruit as might have been despised in 
Covent Garden by the side of May-dukes or Morellas, 
but to us inexpressibly grateful with its little drop of 
sharp subacid in each cherry, no bigger than a red 
currant, and clear as the brightest of Bohemian glass. 

"Now, cap'n," said Jem, when he had well cleared 



Autumn — The First Day of the Season. 241 

his tree, " we have to make up for this bout ; we 11 take 
this side of the pond down to the road, and then to the 
big hill anent the sea. There 's half a dozen coveys I 
knows of there." 

All agreed. The dogs soon got their heads again, a 
sweet little breeze sprung up, and like giants refreshed 
we started for our evening's sport. Hard by the road" 
which forks off to Cove and Cape St Francis, a small 
lake, fringed with alder and willow, and ribboned into 
little shady bays, receives the waters of the rill of our 
late bivouac. On the slopes above we were pressing 
through the dense wood, when Jem, who was leading, 
stopped, and with a gesture of his hand imposed silence. 

" What is it ? " cried Wolfe softly. 

" Listen, Cap'n, listen ! " 

" Quack, quack, qua, qua, qua ! " faintly heard, yet 
not very far off. 

' ■ Call in the dogs, whistle 'em in ! Juno, lie down, 
down charge ! go to heel, good dog ! " 

" Qua, qua, qua, qua," still more faintly, but the 
dogs caught it, and cocked their ears perceptibly. 
Down on our knees we dropped, parting the branches 
noiselessly towards the lake. Step by step, inch by 
inch, we crept towards the call. I lost sight of my 
friends behind a bush, just as we could see the gleam 
of the waters through the leaves and twigs ; when 
suddenly, "bang" on one side, "bang, bang" on the 
other, put an end to my prospects of a shot. A terrible 
splutter, and then the quacking ceased for ever. With 
the end of a long stick, Jem fished on shore a brace of 



242 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

fine black ducks, with the blue badge on the wing. 
Except the canvas-back of the Potomac, there is no 
wild fowl equal to this fellow. They are highly prized 
in Newfoundland, not being over plentiful, and rarely 
seen except in pairs. Our prize was a great addition 
to the bag, and almost made amends for the fruitless 
chase after the curlews. 

Across the road, laughing and talking, then down 
into a lane winding through the tall overhanging 
brushwood for nearly a mile, until, just at the ford of 
a little brook, where a few big stones were dotted here 
and there for crossing, almost beneath our feet sprang 
a covey, the gleam of their white wings being seen but 
for an instant as they topped over the low wood. 

" Mark ! mark ! mark ! " cried out one and all. " I 
see them," said Jem ; " pitched just in a little hollow 
over fhem lot of firs." 

" Humph ! " said Wolfe, " that comes of talking, with 
dogs at heel, and not hunting." 

" Who would have thought of meeting them here, 
right in the track ? " 

" You never can tell where they will be of an even- 
ing, they come out into walks and by-paths after the 
droppings, and especially where there 's running water. 
Look out now," pursued Jem ; "let the dogs go ahead 
a bit," 

They led us up the side of a hill, at an angle of 
about 60°; and although it was evening, rivers ran 
from our faces ere we had breasted the top fairly. 
Here, among the fir copses, intersected with paths, 



Autumn — TJie First Day of the Season. 243 

Eover and Juno tracked warily, noses to ground, but 
on the scent. Up one of these dark tracks, carpeted 
with generations of brown fir leaves, Wolfe and I 
followed the dogs ; but as the scent soon grew less 
warm, I turned back quickly to try another, when, in a 
little clearing round a leafy corner, what should I see 
but Master Jem, the cunning old fox, gun to shoulder, 
in the very act of "potting" a magnificent covey, 
about fifty paces in front of him. Off went his barrels, 
and as it was too late I held my tongue, rejoicing, 
nevertheless, to see that only one bird out of twenty 
rose at the report with drooping wing; the shot had 
glanced off the well-protected coats of the others. 
Down bustled Wolfe with the dogs, and we quickly 
picked up three brace of the scattered tribe ; the scent 
gradually leading to an open on the very edge of the 
cliff, whence we saw the long line of iron-bound coast 
towards St John's, dotted with the white fishing-hamlets, 
and their neat edgings of field and copse. As we circled 
round back towards the hill again, Jem stopped to 
listen, and backed the dogs with eager gesture. 

" Look, Cap'n ! don't you see 'em ? there they hop ; 
two, five, seven, ten — there ! " 

Wolfe strained his eyes, so did I, but all in vain. 

"Where?" we whispered; "where? What are 
they?" 

" Look!" said Jem; "do you see that grey, mossy 
stone, about a hundred yards ahead ? the big one, just 
to the right of it, — there they hop." 

Now we made them out, though not easily, so similar 



244 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

was the colour of the birds to the ground they select 
to feed on. Warily we moved towards them, guided 
as much by the whistling of the plovers as anything 
else. 

" Wait/' whispered Jem, " wait ; they '11 clump up 
together, and then we 11 fire ; it 's a long shot yet." 

In about ten seconds more, bang went all the guns 
together. Four of the birds lay on the ground, and 
two or three of the rest flew away with trailing wing. 
Wolfe dashed after one ; I after another, which dis- 
appeared suddenly behind a low boulder. Almost 
stumbling in my haste over the spot I expected to 
find the bird, I barely had time to draw up shuddering 
to see the stone projected half its short breadth over 
the perpendicular sea-cliff of four hundred feet, where, 
at the base beneath my amazed eye, true as a plummet- 
line, broke the hoarse Atlantic breakers. Some great 
landslip must have occurred here to undermine the 
guardian escarp of earth ; one step more forward and 
the hand now holding the pen would have been hidden 
for ever beneath that boiling foam. 

It was time to turn homeward ; edging the woods 
as we walked, and picking up several birds among 
the open glades, to which towards sunset they always 
resort. By this time, after several smart shots' be- 
tween Wolfe and Jem, the former had bagged nine 
brace of grouse, and the latter eight-and-a-half. So 
when we crossed the road towards our shooting-ground 
of the morning, Master Jem said, carelessly enough as 
it were — 



Autumn — The First Day of the Season. 245 

" Now, Cap'n, I tell you what, that's a desperate 
heavy wood to the right. If you take the road, and 
walk on about half a mile, the Kiurnal and I '11 turn 
down into this bit of a path, and meet you round. 
Maybe we '11 pick up a bird or two as we go." 

" All right," said Wolfe, as he went off leisurely up 
the road to the left. 

The moment he was out of sight, Jem dashed into 
the jungle path, and walked more than a quarter of a 
mile at the top of his speed. " Come on, Kiurnal," he 
cried; "we'll circumvent 'em this time." Beneath a 
sharp rise on our left he dashed head foremost into the 
thick wood, tearing through it, and climbing over the 
close-set obstacles as if his very life depended on it. 
All I could elicit was, " Come on, Kiurnal, come on ; 
push up now, we 're close on." At length, as he was 
grasping the trunk of a tree for a lift to a higher spot, 
not fifty feet from the brow above us went the " bang, 
bang," of a gun, and Jem dropped as if shot himself, 
crying— 

" There's that d Cap'n a bin and got among the 

barches." 

He looked as if he had been dipped into a bucket of 
water, yet up he jumped and sprang again at the sap- 
lings. " Come on, Kiurnal, or we won't get a shot at 
all," — when again came the report of Wolfe's gun, as we 
struggled out of the confounded thickets, and, half-dead, 
half-blind, stood upon the edge of the open birch copse. 
Here it was that cunning Master Jem had intended to 
arrive first, for he knew that this was a favourite haunt 



246 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

of the birds at this time ; and Juno took up the scent at 
once, first here, then there, now under this clump, now 
under that tuft ; but all in vain, for the scent was blind ; 
the birds had just left. To add to Jem's disgust, which 
served him right enough, there came farther off the 
crack of Wolfe's piece again ; and Jem, wiping his 
flushed visage with a groan, exclaimed, " Oh, that cute 
old cuss of a Cap'n ! who 'd a thought he 'd a been an' 
got in among the barches first ? " 

However, we did manage to pick up a few odd birds 
before the curtain of night became too thick to see ; 
about which time we hit off to a nicety the spot where 
the lane and road met, and saw Green with the trap all 
ready for a start. I gave Jem a good nip from my 
flask, — not only allowable now, but very advisable ; then, 
while I sat down to change wet shoes and socks, to my 
surprise away he started again, and in less than five 
minutes I heard him firing as hard as he could for 
several minutes. It was useless attempting to follow, 
as I could have seen a bird against the lighter part of 
the sky, and that was all. In a few minutes more he 
returned with two brace and a half of grouse. " Ah/' 
said the old coon, " I guess I 've done the Cap'n. I 
knOwed there 'd be a sprinkling in that old potato-garden. 
They often comes up close to the road just about now." 
As he spoke he fired off the blank charges of his gun, 
when at the report, from the ditch almost touching the 
nag's feet, up sprang a whacking old cock, and whisked 
away with a wag of his tail beyond ken in the gloam- 
ing. It was enough to make one dance with disgust to 



Autumn — The First Day of the Season. 247 

think of the hours we had tramped without seeing a 
feather, and now, with gun unloaded and only darkness 
visible, they were buzzing like mosquitoes all about 
one. 

Ah ! on the brow just above, there go the charges of 
Wolfe's gun as a signal to know where we are. We 
give him a hail, ringing loudly through the still night, 
and very soon, preceded by Kover, we hear him lum- 
bering through the brushwood. While he takes off his 
wet toggery we count the birds and make up the day's 
sport. Seven and twenty brace of grouse, a brace of 
black duck, five plovers, with five brace and a half of 
snipe, make up the bag ; of which the greater share fell 
to the superior skill of my friend. In spite of the luck 
of the old potato-garden, Wolfe had just managed to 
keep one bird ahead of Jem, though the latter said 
nothing about the failure of his dodge at the " barches." 
How Wolfe laughed as I told him the story; it was 
almost worth enduring that climb through the wood to 
see Jem's disgust, and Wolfe's sides shaking with the 
story after. 

Twelve miles after a heavy day over a hilly road is 
weary work enough. When I had changed my shoes, 
and had taken a nip at the flask, I felt I could have 
started again and walked for hours. But long before 
we had reached the crest of the hill, whence Fort 
Amherst's light gleamed behind the city, now eclipsed 
by the tower of St Thomas' Church as we turned to the 
left, and now mingled among the long row of lights in 
Government House as we echelloned to the right, both 






248 



Lost Amid the Fogs. 



Wolfe and I were far in the realms of dreamland. I 
remember only a voice of welcome at the gate, with a 
hurried tale of our sport, before I was fast asleep again 
on the bear-skin spread before the hearth. And so 
ended the first day's shooting in the breezy woods and 
over the barrens of bright evergreen Newfoundland. 





CHAPTER XV. 

AUTUMN — A "WITLESS" EXPEDITION. 






REQUENT during the next few weeks were 
the meetings at Bakehouse Corner, and 
many other corners as well, for the com- 
paring of bags, in which transactions all 
dozens were no doubt bakers' dozens, and something 
over. Anyhow, so completely riddled of game were 
the ten miles round the city by the end of that time, 
that in as many days we hardly got as many shots. 
Xo matter whether we tried a long trot round over the 
Three Barrens, or a tramp over the treadmill of Broad 
Cove, round the Virgin's Bosom or Petty Harbour bogs, 
it was all the same story in the end, — lots of dry bread 
to digest with precious little sack to moisten it. Thus 
it was that one evening, as we walked in Indian file 
across the bogs of the White Hills, Wolfe propounded 
the solemn verdict " that it wouldn't do at all." " The 
continual worry has driven the birds into the woods," 
said he ; " we 'd better try some other ground, and keep 
this for the end of the season again." 
11 What line do you propose ? " 



250 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

" I have heard that about thirty miles down towards 
Cape Bace, beyond the Bay of Bulls, there is good open 
ground and plenty of birds." 

" Good ! why not make a three days' excursion and 
try it ? " 

" When can you start ? " 

" Say Wednesday, returning Saturday evening; it's 
moonlight." 

Thus agreeing, home we jogged, tired and muddy, 
but better contented; for it is always a consolation, 
after an unlucky day, to cut out fresh prospects for 
quick realisation, and the more pleasant when unknown 
ground and scenery has to be explored. So it came to 
pass, that one o'clock on the next Wednesday afternoon 
found the well-laden shooting-trap before the door, 
while Kover and Ben, circling round the wheels with 
stiffened tails, defied each other with muttered growls. 
The good mare swept us out by the lovely road which 
aligns the river towards Waterford Bridge. We can 
trace its course for many miles on our way towards the 
Bay of Bulls by the woody banks running through an 
undulating country but half reclaimed on our right; 
while on the left the slopes stretch up to the breezy 
headlands, beyond which there is nothing but sea and 
cloud from this to Europe. We pass the turning to 
Petty Harbour, with its many lakelets running from 
one to the other through rocky gorges, not far from 
which, upon the sea-coast, one of the most curious 
natural phenomena existing is well worth going to see. 
It was after an easterly blow upon the lee-shore that I 



Autumn — A " Witless" Expedition. 251 

had the good fortune once to pass in a steamer and 
see the " Spout" in full blast. A perpendicular funnel 
through the cliffs, some twenty yards or so inland, 
and bent like a syphon towards the sea, receives the 
waters of each wave breaking upon the rocks. The 
waters rush up the orifice, in a shower of spray in the 
air, re-descending with a crash upon the rocks around. 
With astonishing regularity, at half-minute intervals, 
the spout blows like a petrified whale, forming a natural 
landmark for mariners impossible to mistake. Indeed, 
so jealous at one time were the pilots of their beautiful 
rival, that exclaiming, like the Ephesians of old, their 
craft was in danger, the excitement drove them to 
make an expedition to destroy it. It is supposed they 
did some injury to the funnel ; but, nevertheless, when 
we saw it, " There she spouts again," was a sight as 
wondrous as novel. From this we ran gaily along a 
country road, winding in and out among lochs, fringed 
with rocks, and dark firs bending over the reeds 
lovingly wherever the waters shallow into little lonely 
bays. These are great places for duck and trout, 
and our wistful eyes followed Hover's movements, as he 
hunted in and out among the scrub along the water's 
edge. 

Of a sudden, Green, my man, looking round, cried — 

" And by the japers, is it Eover pinting there? and 
as stiddy as a rock he is." 

A hundred yards or so back stood the dog looking 
straight into the ditch by the roadside. 

"And there's Ben a drawing over the little bog 



252 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

yonder, sir," cried the excited Green ; " there 's a covey 
there by the Holy n 

" Bah ! " said Wolfe, rising up and looking back, 
"we should have roused them as we drove past: it 
must be a musk-rat." So he began whistling and call- 
ing " Kover, Kover," but Kover never stirred, though I 
fancy his head bent a little towards the voice. 

"It's birds," cried Green, "it's birds, sir ; I see one 
now a- flying over the bush into the little bog." 

Down jumped Wolfe, his barrels were loaded, and a 
very few seconds sufficed to fix them into the stock. As 
he drew up to the dog, ten or twelve birds rose out of the 
little ditch, Wolfe taking a brace out of them before 
they alighted on the further edge of the adjoining bog. 
I felt half crazy thinking that my own gun was not 
get-at-able, and the more when Wolfe began to draw on 
Ben's point at the edge of the bog. Up sprung the old 
cock with a "kur, kur, ki, kur, kur," right over our 
heads, untouched by the discharge, and then Wolfe 
followed the dogs again to the covey, not three hundred 
yards away, where he knocked over a third bird at the 
rise. He came trudging back with three young birds 
in his hand, and returned his barrels to the case. 
" Now, that 's what I call a bit of luck," said he, 
striking a fuse'e for his pipe, " which won't happen 
every day. On you go." 

Another brace of miles brought us to the top of the 
steep hill which leads down to the Bay of Bulls, a well- 
sheltered gap in the wall of sea cliff, of which advantage 
has, of course, been taken to form a good-sized fishing- 



Autumn — A " Witless" Expedition. 253 

settlement. Through the struggling town we drove, 
beneath the fish flakes, just like raised terraces for vines 
in sunny lands, stretching across the road, and upon 
which the whole population were mounted, busy in 
covering with bark the half dried fish against the dews 
of night. Beyond the opposite slope we came to another 
little bay, with another fishing-settlement. Why this 
should be called Witless Bay cannot be explained ; per- 
haps it was a corruption of some old word ; but it was 
our destination, and not to be despised on account of its 
appellation. The village lay snugly in a gap in the 
cliffs, with comfortable cottages promiscuously scattered 
about it, all with plots of cabbages inside the fences, 
and pigs and geese without. Above these in condition, 
on one side of the little bay under the shelter of the 
cliffs, rose the steeple of the church, while near a dark 
clump of firs the smoke of the priest's house mingled 
with the chimneys of the convent quite lovingly. In a 
few minutes we heard of a little hostelrie kept by 
Paddy Carey, at the end of a maze of lanes on the 
opposite side of the bay. I don't know how my trap 
survived the jolting of the big boulders on the path, 
but at last we arrived before the cottage, where Mr 
Carey himself, pipe in mouth and in his shirt-sleeves, 
was surveying the glories of his cabbage -garden. 
Behind him, through the open door, we could see a 
sort of bar filled with fishing-folk over their evening 
grog. To our demand for accommodation, the man 
took his pipe from his mouth, and with a long, blank 
stare said — 



254 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

" Bee the holy, Barney ! just to think, here 's a purty, 
and the missus gone out till to-morrow." 

" Well, but," chimed in Wolfe, " I suppose you have 
the beds all the same." 

" Oh, oh ! " cried Paddy, " Barney, my boy, what '11 I 
do at all ? the missus gone out till to-morrow." 

"Never mind the missus, Mister Carey, I dare say 
we 11 do very well." 

" Och ! come in, come in ; bay all manes, gintlemen ; 
we '11 do the best for ye." 

Inside we found, beyond the bar, a little dusty par- 
lour, and above in a garret two bunks, the whole 
highly perfumed with cod-liver oil, in which Mister 
Carey was an extensive dealer. Green was to sleep 
before the great wood-fire in the bar, and by a good 
deal got the best of it. Ten minutes made us pretty 
snug under the circumstances, and rejecting Mr Carey's 
offer of salt cod and cabbage, we made out some tea 
with buttered toast, looked well to our guns, and turned 
in early. 

There were ominous looking clouds coming up from 
the south-west when we roused at ^.ve o'clock. By six 
we had fairly started, with two native guides, to breast 
the steep hill beyond which our ground was said to 
stretch. Both took their "davies" to plenty of birds, 
predicting great sport on arriving at a certain "yellow 
mash" about eight or ten miles off. Over the crest of 
the hill on the cliffs the tract lay straight along the 
edge of little lochs, bordered by wood or bog ; and we 
had not gone half a mile when, in the middle of a little 



Autumn — A " Witless" Expedition. 255 

brown barren, right from under our feet, up sprung a 
glorious covey of at least twenty birds. Before we 
could say " knife," they were over the brow and gone. 

"That comes from talking," said Wolfe, taking his 
pipe out of his mouth, and putting it away ; " serve us 
all right ; what a covey ! Oh yes, master Eover, you 're 
very busy now it's too late; gone away, boy, gone 
away/' 

Away rattled the dogs ahead, and very soon I heard 
the crack of Wolfe's piece among the scattered covey, 
getting a shot myself at a good point from Ben 
among the brushwood. About a mile farther on, we 
flushed a covey, taking a brace out of it, and then two 
brace of old birds successively, knocking the whole of 
them over. It was now nearly eight o'clock, and we 
had done pretty fairly ; but to our dismay the mist from 
the southward was steadily increasing, making the ferns 
and birches through which we passed terribly wet. 
Just as we were passing round the edge of a loch, a 
" Cra, era, era, era," wild and piercing, brought us to a 
sudden halt. Peeping through the bushes, on a spit of 
sandy mud, about two hundred yards off, were five 
magnificent geese, calling to some of their acquaintance 
with outstretched necks, and telling them, no doubt, 
what a delightfully moist day it was. " Cra, cra, era, 
era, cra," screamed again the wild challenge over the 
wavelets of the dark loch, as anxiously we debated 
whether by any means we could get within shot. But 
not a particle of shelter was to be seen, and we watched 
them for mere fascination's sake, until, of a sudden, with 



256 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

louder screams, they rose in the air, and straight as an 
arrow, in long Indian-file, disappeared behind the misty 
woods of the far side of the loch. They were most 
likely young birds bred in the marshes about here, 
waiting by instinct for a signal from some flock passing 
down south from Labrador to the mighty swamps of 
Florida or Louisiana. 

A miserable walk through driving mist, guns under 
arm, and head to ground, brought us to the edge of the 
" yallow inash," a great inland bog covered with a short 
jaundiced grass, extending for some eight miles on 
towards Killigrew's Barren, once across which, we were 
to fall in with game in any abundance. It looked un- 
inviting, but manfully we pushed into the inland sea, 
often fetlock deep in mud and ooze. At this time, 
about eleven o'clock, there was not a breath of wind, 
and the misty atmosphere felt quite stifling ; when, at a 
glint or struggle of the sun to make his number for the 
day, the bog became alive — literally alive — with the 
accursed black-fly. The more gallant the effort to 
pierce the gloom, the worse the pests became. Guides 
and all, it was nothing but muttered curses, with flap, 
flap, at each step or tumble forward ; while very soon, 
necks, hands, and faces, ran down small rivers of blood. 
An hour's struggle at this horrid work was as much as 
any one could stand, the very tough-skinned guides 
themselves looked done up, and I caved in altogether. 
As to shooting, had a hundred coveys risen all round, 
not a trigger could have been pulled. Oh ! for a breath 
of air ! Oh ! for a breeze to blow the accursed little 



Autumn — A " Witless" Expedition. 257 

devils away. But more stifling than ever came the 
atmosphere, and worse in proportion the attacks of our 
bloodsuckers. 

" Where are we ?" I cried at last to the guide; " how 
far now have we to go along this awful marsh ?" 

" Och ! the sorrow o' me knows, yer honner ; 'tis the 
flies is awful." 

I could just see the burly figure of Wolfe looming 
along, head bent well down, some fifty yards to the 
left, and hailed him. 

" Holloa ! I can't stand this ; I shall lay down and 
die soon ; let 's get out of it, for heaven's sake." 

A minute after, as the mists on the right rolled up 
together like a folded curtain, we caught the glimpse of 
a high peak. " We must climb that, yer honner," said 
the guides, ' ; 'to get rid of these bastes ; 'tis the Boat- 
swain s Look-out." With drooping heads we made for 
the bottom of the ascent. Up that horrid climb of 
three hundred feet, with rivers of red and white flowing 
from cheek, temple, brow, and neck, the demon flies 
followed us. The guides suffered just as much as we 
did, and the instant we reached the culminating point, 
a flattish rock surrounded by shrubs, rushed to make 
a fire and search for water. Thankfully we all shel- 
tered under the lee of the smoke as it rose from the 
damp embers, and agreed that we had never enjoyed 
a cup of tea such as the kettle produced ten minutes 
after. 

Before we had finished breakfast, a blast of wind 
swept across our elevated parlour, driving off the mists, 



258 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

and, to our joy, the flies as well. But the guides cried 
to hurry up, as we should have a deluge of rain upon 
us before long. It was decided to turn homewards, and 
give up shooting that day as a bad job. Before we had 
scrambled down the side of the hill to the " yellow 
mash " again, the rain, condensed from the fogs by the 
cold current of air, came down in a steady lash — bad 
enough, but paradise compared to the flies. Forming 
Indian-file, locks under arms, dogs with slouched ears 
and drooping tails, we tramped over bog and hill, those 
slushy, weary miles, back to the village of Witless Bay, 
after a very witless day's work — consisting of no sport, 
a precious mauling from the flies, and as honest a 
drenching as a man need well soak in. However, when 
we had peeled our soaking garments, and gotten within 
the embouchure of Mr Paddy Carey's kitchen-chimney, 
there to sniff up (like the famous Tom Codlin) the 
dinner preparing, our hearts revived. Mrs Paddy had, 
to Mr Paddy's great content, returned and effected a 
marvellous change for the better — concocting, moreover, 
a fragrant stew of fowl, potatoes, and cabbage, which 
went down uncommonly well. After that the guns had 
to be thoroughly taken to bits, wiped, and oiled. Then 
we enjoyed our tobacco inside the chimney, half-roasted 
by the huge logs of pine and birch ; while villagers 
dropped in and out on the chance of a word of gossip, 
or a drop of rum frigidum sine. Thus we consoled 
ourselves for defeat, and pleasantly prepared to do good 
battle on the morrow. 

It was well we did so ; for, from beneath the eastern 



Autumn — A " Witless" Expedition. 259 

horizon, to our joy, the morn broke gloriously upon 
nature, refreshed with the copious bathing of the pre- 
vious day. In spite of oleaginous counsels, we decided 
dead against that accursed " yellow mash," and took the 
crests of the hills at once. Here we found open barrens, 
sprinkled every hundred yards or so with little copses 
of birch, fir, larch, and brushwood ; and, as the run 
followed the contour of the cliffs, it dipped and rose 
into alternate little hills or dells. Before twelve o'clock 
we flushed among them eight coveys, and, with a fair 
sprinkling of scattered birds, picked out fourteen brace 
to our credit, reaching at last the extremity of a bluff, 
commanding a wide plain between us and the cliffs of 
the coast. The Atlantic, dotted here and there with a 
white sail, stretched north and south in one grand un- 
broken level — the sheen of the midday sun glistening 
on its face. The surface of the bluff was carpeted with 
blueberries, so thickly that one lifted the foot in vain 
to find a spot where the little plum-like fruit might not 
be crushed ; anon sweeping into the hollow of the palm 
a hundred or so, with the pearly bloom on each berry, 
we fling them into our mouths as a stoker shoves coals 
into his furnace. Vast are the quantities of wild fruits, 
raspberries, cranberries, strawberries, quashberries, part- 
ridge-berries, stoneberries, found on the hills, barrens, 
and bogs of Fish-and-fog-land. They are brought into 
the city and villages to be jammed down roughly with 
molasses — a capital substitute for butter for the little 
ravenous fishers, during the long months when grass is 
not and milk itself is scarce. 



2G0 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

Here we emptied the bags and proposed a halt for 
refreshment, when Wolfe, turning a sort of professional 
eye on the open broken ground below us, would have it 
that we ought to explore there first. " Chacun a son 
gout." I was dead beat, and, as a matter of course, 
the guide was of my opinion. " There 's sorra little in 
it," said he, throwing his bags on the ground with a 
welcome sigh. 

" H'm," replied Wolfe, " it looks to me a promising 
bit, and it wouldn't take us half an hour; besides there's 
no woods for the birds to sneak into." 

"Away you go, then, while Green and I make up 
the fire and boil the kettle — doubt if you get a 
shot." 

Down stumped Wolfe and Kover, followed by the 
disgusted guide ; while we, first carefully putting the 
game under a bush and covering it with ferns, began 
tearing up by the roots the rotten stumps of trees which 
had covered these hills many many years ago, and had 
probably perished by a conflagration. Of this tinder- 
dry wood there was any quantity at hand, and a glorious 
pile, of it was soon heaped on the very brow of the bluff. 
Then Green, making a little scientific aperture under- 
neath, opposite the breeze, stuffed the hole with dried 
grasses, little twigs, with a bit of paper " afore all," as 
he styled it ; and now, striking a match with the heel 
of his boot, touched the tender spot, fanning the first 
weak kindling with his own natural bellows. Crack 
went the twigs ; crack, crack, responded the thicker 
boughs inside ; and Green soon rose from his knees 



Autumn — A " Witless" Expedition. 261 

with "Faix, it'll be a glorious foire ; an' it's a pity we 
have niver a pertaty to put into it ! " He filled the 
kettle from the little rill in the bushes, while I piled 
on stump after stamp until the smoke rose into a 
very cloud overhead, to cause, it may be, many a sailor 
far out at sea to wonder then at the great fire which 
sprung up suddenly on the blue hills of the distant 
coast. 

Ay! it was delicious, this hour of utter abandon on 
the sunny hills, free from dust, or dirt, or sign of weary 
toil. The very crackling of the flame tickled the ear 
with an idea of independent comfort, as if home in its 
best enjoyment could easily be set up here. It lasts 
too short a time, and is too dependent on such weather, 
this Crusoe luxury ; but the brief hour of its lasting 
is a compensation to balance the miseries of many 
longer periods in the grind of daily life, as most men 
have it. 

" Pop/' faintly from the distant plain below, and yet 
another " pop." Out ran Green from behind the lee of 
the fire, and pointed out the two little puffs of blue 
smoke which marked Wolfe's presence in the bushes. 

"He's missed him, sir; — be the holy! he's missed 
him. I sees him a-wheeling down to the firs to the 
right. Och ! look at him now ; he 's a wheeled off this 
way ; — look at him, sir ; here he comes : thunder ! how 
he's rising." 

I caught sight of the bird at last, as Green said, 
rising over the bush about half a mile off. Up he 
towered, up, up, up ; until at last, with a gentle flap 



262 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

or so of his wings, he dropped like a parachute aniODg 
the dense brushwood, and was lost to view. 

" Go and get him, Green; you see where he fell, 
just by the big white stump: anyhow I'll guide you 
when you 're down there." 

" Sure, sir, an how '11 1 git him at all? shall I take 
the gun and have a drive at him ? " 

" Pick him up, man, he 's dead " 

" And is he dead at all ! sure he flew well enough." 

"You'll find him dead enough; look alive, and 
we '11 surprise the Captain when he comes up." 

Down tumbled Green over the rocks, till he got 
among the scrub on the level, when, guided by my 
handkerchief, I heard a faint triumphant shout, and 
soon after he was climbing the hill again, with a 
splendid old cock in his hand. 

" Sure, sir," said he, " it 's a mishtery to me what 's 
killed him, for his wings and body is as roight as the 
day he was born." 

Separating the fine feathers at the back of the head, 
I showed him the smallest trace of blood. A pellet, 
only one, had struck the bird somewhere near the 
brain, its action not felt until some seconds had 
elapsed as he flew away from the fusillade. Then he 
began to tower, up, up, until consciousness and strength 
ceasing, he fell gently back to earth. It was a w r onder 
there was no hawk on the watch to snap him off before 
the sportsman's eyes, as is often the case, they under- 
standing the law of the thing by the flight of the 
quarry just as well as we do. 






Autumn— A " Witless" Expedition. 263 

"Hang him on the stump, Green; here comes the 
Captain, and we'll hear what he says. "Well, what 
luck ? " 

" H'm," replied our friend, " a precious climb ; and 
I was never more deceived in my life with ground." 

" What ! did you bag nothing after all that tramp ? 
We thought we heard your bark several times. Here, 
take this mug of tea. Eh ? " 

" Did you ? H'm, then it was some one else shooting, 
I suppose. I only fired twice ; knocked a bird over 
as dead as a door nail, but though I searched till I 
was sick of it, the place was so thick I couldn't find 
him." 

Just then Green, the gaffer, laughed with a sly 
glance at the bird on the tree. Wolfe guessed at once 
how it was, and coughed over his tea as he said — 

" H'm, you picked him up, eh ? Did he tower ? I 
thought he might ; how far did he fly ? " 

" About a moile, or a moile and a half, sir ; and you 
might have been looking for him all day where you 
thought you knocked him over." 

" H'm/' growled Wolfe. 

" Yes, sir ; and you see it 's us as lighted the fire 
and bagged the bird after all." 

So then we all laughed, ate and drank like hunters, 
lay back for a chat over our morning's work, and 
cantered gaily into the region of happy dreams, while 
the soft sea-breeze sighed over our heads, and curled 
the smoke as it rose from our fast lessening fire. Too 
swiftly sped the time of that rude outspanning, with 



264 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

all wants, to make us equal to princes of earth, around 
us in mock simplicity. 

Too short, too short, such minutes. A colder 
whisper of the breeze roused us to business again. 
The dying embers of the fire were scattered in safe 
places, and the guides told to take us a good round 
homewards. We were jealous of losing a moment of 
that deliqious autumn afternoon, or a yard of that 
springy barren, covered with wild flowers, leading on 
through thickets to other little barrens, where the pre- 
sence of man was noted only by a worn thread across, 
and otherwise just as nature made it. Here we were 
sure of a point or two, and always rose a covey at 
the sunny corners of the dwarf juniper thickets, almost 
stiff enough to walk over. 

At last, with just sufficient light to tumble down 
the slopes, we reached Paddy Carey's hostelrie again, 
and turned out some weighty bags upon the kitchen 
table. We counted over five-and- twenty brace of 
grouse, besides other sprinklings, by far the lion's 
share of which belonged to Wolfe. We had intended 
to double our bag the next day, now that we had our 
hands in ; but, before turning in, a look out from 
Paddy's cabbage- garden over the sea told of a cloud of 
driving mist gathering in the south ; a warning to all 
who had had experience of the " yellow mash," not to be 
neglected. So, thankful that we had nicked one glorious 
day out of the ruck, we packed the bags, and harnessed 
for St John's, not the worse or sorry for our adventures 
amid the hills and mists of Witless Bay. 



Autumn — A "Witless" Expedition. 265 

Shall I go on, or is the reader wearied of our joyous 
days over the countless barrens and thickets which 
surround St John's on all sides ? Alack ! day by day 
the line of light grew narrower, and bid us turn our 
steps homeward sooner and sooner. There is neither 
time nor space to tell a thousandth part of these 
bright beads strung on memory's chain. As eyes 
grew surer, and wind stronger, so the days and the 
birds decreased together; though each white feather, 
dyed for winter's fashion, added weight and plumpness 
to the noble game. Still about the beginning of 
November they were very scarce indeed ; a point from 
Ben or Eover was a point indeed then not lightly to 
be missed. Karely then we heard the plaintive cry of 
the American robin, " Oh ! poor Captain Kennydy — 
Kenny dy ! oh ! poor Kennydy — Kennydy ! " And bitter 
cold were our drives home ere, twinkling in the far 
distance, we caught the first glint of Fort Amherst 
light, the herald of approaching warmth and com- 
fort. 

And yet there was a reprieve in store for us we 
could little have expected. Suddenly at this time 
spring appeared to break again upon the desolation 
of nature. The cold moist grays dissolved into tints 
of beauty, almost worthy of Naples. The cattle left 
the close stalls to browse the scanty herbage, and the 
birds of passage, in flocks along the shallows of the 
lakes, might be seen at sunset preening their wearied 
feathers. Sweet are the words of a modern poet singing 
of these fairy moments of the Indian summer : — 



266 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

" What visionary tints the year puts on 

When falling leaves falter through motionless air, 

Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone ! 
How shimmer the long flats and pastures bare, 
As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills 
The bowl between me and those distant hills, 
And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, tremulous hair ! 



" How fuse and mix, with what unfelt degrees, 
Clasp'd by the faint horizon's languid arms, 

Each into each, the hazy distances ! 
The soften'd season all the landscape charms ; 
Those hills, my native village that embay, 
In waves of dreamier purple roll away, 
And floating in mirage seem all the glimmering farms. 

" Far distant sounds the hidden chickadee 
Close at my side ; far distant sound the leaves ; 

The fields seem fields of dream, where Memory 
Wanders like gleaning Kuth ; and as the sheaves 
Of wheat and barley wavefd in the eye 
Of Boaz as the maiden's glow went by, 
So tremble and seem remote all things the sense receives. 

" The cock's shrill trump that tells of scattered corn, 
Passed breezily on by all his flapping mates, 

Faint and more faint, from barn to barn is borne 
Southward, perhaps to far Magellan's Straits ; 

Dimly I catch the throb of distant flails ; 

Silently overhead the henhawk sails, 
With watchful, measuring eye, and for his quarry waits. 

" The sober'd robin, hunger-silent now, 
Seeks cedar berries blue, his autumn cheer ; 

The squirrel on the shingly shagbark's bough, 
Now saws, now lists with downward eye and ear, 



Autumn — A " Witless" Expedition. 267 

Then drops his nut, and with a chipping bound, 
Whisks to his winding fastness underground ; 
The clouds like swans drift down the streaming atmosphere. 

" O'er yon bare knoll the pointed cedar-shadows 
Drowse on the crisp, gray moss ; the ploughman's call 

Creeps faint as smoke from black, fresh-furrow'd meadows ; 
The single crow a single caw lets fall ; 
And all around me every bush and tree 
Says Autumn's here, and Winter soon will be, 
Who snows his soft, white sleep and silence over all." 



What more ? One thing, a little word on health, 
that chief of blessings. When, on a bleak, snow- 
threatening afternoon about the beginning of December, 
after many a feeble day's work latterly, we made up 
our minds that all was over for this season, and gave 
the guns their final oiling, we could have walked from 
sunrise to sunset without a thought of fatigue. Those 
glorious rises over the boundless hills, breathing in 
from their tops the pure Atlantic breezes day after day, 
had toned us down into a first-rate fighting trim. 
One could see by Wolfe's clear blue eye, elastic step, 
the tone of his handsome face, and the grasp of his 
hand, that all was well within. Long may it be so, 
old friend, now far away ! and if you ever read these 
recollections, pat Kover on the head for my sake. As 
I write these last words Ben is sitting at my feet: I 
look down into his hazel eye, pass my hand over his 
big silken head, and cry for fun, "Kur, kur, kur, kur ; 
seek him out/' Ah ! how his eye glistens, and his 
tail moving slowly to and fro intimates in his own 



268 



Lost Amid the Fogs. 



way, " I know, I know." And I love him all the more 
that his spirit can pass with mine back upon those 
misty, sea-girt barrens which we have often trod so 
patiently, so lovingly together. " Down charge, old 
boy ! down charge ! " 





CHAPTER XVI. 

11 THE ODD TRICK AND THE RUBBER 1 
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 




E were now called upon to enter a widely 
different campaign to the one which had so 
pleasantly concluded. One morning, about 
the beginning of December, the first spat 
of snow was on the ground, and over its pure surface 
we tramped down Water Street to the bank, to do a 
little business and pick up the news. As the red-baized 
guardians noiselessly swung behind, the brave banker 
himself left off a consultation with his cashier in a 
brass netted bird-cage, and came forward to greet us. 

11 Walk into my parlour, do; glad to see you. His 
Excellency is inside ; Mr Green will draw out the forms ; 
pray walk in." 

Doffing our caps to the fine old British gentleman 
who represented Her Majesty in England's Ancient 
Colony, we entered the sanctum replete with the fate 
of almost every man of note in it. Little flies and big 
flies, mosquitoes and blue -bottles, all had to come 
sooner or later to the presiding spider behind the green 



270 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

table here, when he sucked a drop or two from each en 
passant, and so grew more genial and pleasant daily. 
It was thus he picked up all the gossip, and knew the 
interest of the community seriatim; no small matter 
professionally, and not the less convenient socially, in 
a place to which the mail only came in winter once 
a-month. But the spider, as I said, was a genial spider, 
and if he sucked, as his duty bid him, he always did it 
pleasantly to his victim's feelings. 

Pleasantly ! shall I tell you how pleasantly ? Surely 
as the hand of the clock daily passed the mark of 
eleven, the towering form of the noble old Governor 
would be seen gaining inch by inch down the steep 
hill from St Thomas' Church, halting nowhere until 
he reached the one small chair in the banker's little 
parlour. There, no matter what was going on — what 
monetary convulsions were exciting change — what 
domestic anguish was racking his upper stories — what 
calls pressed, or messages awaited urgent replies — the 
banker gave up that hour to the amusement of his 
aged friend. That unselfishness and sacrifice (and it 
was no light one either) on the banker's part, was 
simply life to the old gentleman. The remaining 
twenty- three hours of his existence he passed in a 
great uncongenial residence, half palace, half work- 
house, in look at least, where a cricket chirping in the 
kitchen might easily have been heard in the attics. 
Few can understand, except men who have lived in 
colonies, the desolation of spirit which (in the very 
midst of society) the Queen's representative may feel ; 



" The Odd Trick and the Rubber." 271 

always fearful, while seeking natural and social sym- 
pathies, of stepping out of the uncompromising path so 
indistinct between dignity and urbanity. Very guarded 
in choosing his society must he be ; and many a one, 
after the first mistake is discovered, are driven back 
into their own solitary thoughts during the remainder 
of their prastorships. God speed the banker that thus 
it was not with our own much- valued chief. 

" I was just remarking to his Excellency," quoth our 
friend, " when you came in, that I expected a good 
many of the whist-club would drop in on me to-day; 
the first snow, sir, is our signal to commence." 

" I wish, wi' a' my heart, I were young enough to join 
ye, gentlemen. Where do ye begin yere meetings ? " 

" Well, sir, we ought to offer the President of the 
Council the first chance." 

" He '11 plead to a certainty his poultry's too young." 

" And there 's none arrived yet from Halifax, or I'd 
offer my own house," said the banker. 

"If that's a', banker, I'll send ye a turkey and a 
dozen of port," said the Governor ; " some of that cask 
Walter Grieve imported for us. It 's vera fine." 

There was no getting out of this, and we clinched 
the bashful banker on the spot with much clapping of 
hands. Next morning, Michael, our trusty old waiter, 
who was anxiously expecting a summons, might have 
been seen with a slip of paper in his hand tramping 
round the town and its suburbs to sound the welcome 
note that our jolly winter gatherings were fairly launched 
again. 



272 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

Certainly to be lost amid the fogs, and quartered 
amid the silence of eternal snows for a stretch of four 
or five months at a time is a part of his education 
which an Englishman seldom calculates on. To have 
society, among men at least, one must have something 
to meet upon common ground as it were, even though 
it be but an excuse for joining a social gathering. No 
doubt, there are many more sensible and elevating 
things than a sixpenny rubber. The study of chemistry, 
readings from Shakespeare, chess, cum multis aliis, may 
each have its votaries ; but none of them combine that 
happy mixture of the otium cum dig. with that demand 
on skill and memory combined, which so rapidly develop 
themselves during each encounter. There was always 
a certain amount of groaning and pious exclamation 
among the ladies when the club was about to open ; 
but the sensible among them rejoiced at the possibility 
of banishing ennui from brows which, now and again, 
after hard work for daily bread, needed the wholesome 
relaxation. 

So, in spite of the frowns of worthy wives, the club 
was formed of sixteen members, heads of families, 
sober and substantial, good fellows every one of them, 
and good neighbours one to the other. Each Monday 
during the snow-bound months the meet took place at 
the house of a member drawn by lot, until each had 
had his turn"; when, if the snow would not melt, there 
was another draw for an extra night or two. Punctual 
as the clock struck seven, the lobby of the host steamed 
with the evaporations of our half-frozen wrappers; 



" The Odd Trick and the Rubber" 273 

thence we were duly ushered into a side parlour for 
an attack en passant on tea and its pleasant belongings. 
Not always, in truth, was the attack a slight one, for we 
were all early diners, selon le coidume ici. They have 
still good old-fashioned ways in the Ancient Colony, 
one of which is the manner of giving that tea. " Fair 
Margaret, in her tidy kirtle," presided behind the hissing 
urn, or the kettle hummed on the hob of the cheery 
fire. Mrs Joslyn, of the lake-farm, always knew when 
the club met ; her orders through the winter always 
running, " for Mondays of a sure, sir," for the best of 
cream, butter, and chickens. Then, besides, one lady 
was famous for her coffee, another for her brown bread, 
and another for her pound-cake ; and the host would 
be sure to observe the affront to his wife if the well- 
merited attention to each was neglected. Truth to say, 
there was little need to press his guests, most of whom 
would dally round the pleasant table until one of the 
elders called us to order. " You re wanted to cut in, 
sir/' was the awful summons from our senior magistrate 
to the last lagger, until all were round the green cloth ; 
the four highest playing together, than the four next ; 
when from that moment until eleven, except in the 
shifting of partners, or a burst of indignation at some 
outrageous play, silence worthy of a nest of conspirators 
was the rule. But about that hour a manifest uneasi- 
ness began to prevade the assembly. An appetising 
fragrance to one -o'clock -diners has begun to steal 
in from unknown parts of the house ; while sundry 
clinking noises about the passages, suggest the possi- 



274 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

bility of trumping your partner's best card in the 
confusion of ideas. Michael, the waiter, rushes in and 
collars the chairs of the first quartette who finish their 
parti, and then whispers a mysterious word to our host, 
which being interpreted means, " that the cook is 
ready to dish up." Gradually the cards are thrown up, 
and we gather round the fire to await the grand signal ; 
while with much dignity our senior member passes his 
snuff-box to such as are on his list for enjoying that 
honour. To him, of course, all honours are in return 
paid, when the folding-doors are thrown open ; and 
the well-lighted room, with a long table right royally 
spread, bursts into welcome view, groaning beneath 
the weight of a substantial British supper, concerning 
which our rules were impartially strict. No kickshaws, 
or champagne, or sweets, were ever permitted. " Four 
dishes with vegetables," was the rule; but the rule 
was not without elasticity in its operations. The four 
dishes were dishes indeed worthy of a generals inspec- 
tion-dinner, and a soldier's ideas of good fare need go 
no further, if indeed they could. A noble turkey, 
never under sixteen pounds, generally faced the presi- 
dent, while a splendid wild-goose did the same graceful 
homage to the vice ; we had, nine times out of ten, 
roast ducks and chicken-pie as sidesmen ; a real York 
ham and stewed oysters just to balance the table ; and 
two pyramids of mashed potatoes browned to perfection. 
Stilton cheese and celery followed as a proper incentive 
for the " materials," with a kettle straight from, the 
hob in better tune than ever, and lemons, if procurable. 



" The Odd Trick and the Rubber." 275 

Now, what think you of that for a supper, my friend ? 
and, mind you, all of the best — of the very first chop 
quality, and no country in the world to beat it ? But 
yet of all the dishes the chef par excellence was the 
" wild goose," and many an extra night did we nick 
during the season on the strength of discovering one of 
our members still possessed a specimen of that rara 
avis, nigroque simillima cygno ; literally true. In other 
lands my experience of the bird had been decidedly 
fishy ; so not less was my amazement to see the carver 
draw his knife across a breast of the depth of an aitch 
bone, and with slice after slice help his sixteen friends 
generously off the same. It was even come and cut 
again with a lucky few, until he offered the skeleton to 
the last hungry inquirer. To taste was to be satisfied 
at once of its merits, and to drop your fork with a 
sigh to your neighbour as you whisper, " A royal bird, 
sir ! a royal bird, indeed ! " 

The fact is, that these noble, swan-like bipeds are 
wild in their breeding, but farm-yard in their rearing. 
When fleclgings, with the soft down blossoming thickly, 
they are taken from the nest in considerable numbers. 
The vast bogs and marshes round Cape Kace yield the 
greatest harvest, where they are chiefly reared by the 
farmers for the St John's market. So highly are they 
valued, that in the spring time the village girls make 
regular excursions to the reeds in search of the eggs, 
which are brought home with glee for a novel kind of 
incubation. By day, wrapped in wool, they are sus- 
pended in the bake-pots near the open fires ; and by 



276 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

night, transferred to the ladies' stockings, they enjoy 
the warmth of their virtuous couches, smuggled away 
in unmentionable corners. The little gobbler babes, 
thus strangely invited to life, are diligently hand-fed 
by the maidens, and each autumn exchanged into 
bright ribbons and shawls, or it may be luxuries for 
Christmas cheer. About the beginning of October the 
boats from the south and south-west begin to haul in 
to the metropolitan wharfs of the merchants, laden with 
ocean spoils ; and not a boat but what brings up its 
tribute of wild geese as well, the birds about three- 
quarters grown. They are eagerly purchased for 7s. 6d. 
to 10s. a bird, and soon become domiciled in the 
poultry-yard, whence many a time the hoarse sunset 
screams of the gander, on our return homewards from 
autumnal strolls, have suggested pleasantly the ap- 
proach of those social gatherings over which the owner 
was honourably to preside. With a sharp lemon sauce 
and proper roasting, there is nothing in the feathered 
tribe to excel this noble game ; and at his sacrificial 
festivities we may heartily drink success to the fair 
damsel who nursed him to maturity, in a generous 
libation of that whisky-toddy with which our merry 
party always concluded. 

But stop, not too fast; before the kettle steams on 
the table, we have to discuss our cheese, port, and 
celery, the two last items in Fish -and -fog -land as 
important as Johannisberg or Tokay to a scion of the 
house of Hapsburg. Ah ! you may smile, gentle 
reader, in more favoured climes. Your smile is not 



" The Odd Trick and the Rubber." 277 

unnatural ; yet if you lived in a place where the green 
herb was hidden for months at a time, you would 
relish the crispness of a bite of celery as much as if, 
you were a cow turned out on spring grass, after a 
winter's stabling on musty hay. It is the more pre- 
cious here because it is rather a chary thing to grow, 
arising partly from grubs, partly from want of skill. 
Just after the first snow has fallen, the produce is dug 
up and carefully replanted in sand in a frost-proof 
cellar, whence it comes to table as fresh as from a 
market-garden at home. Towards the end of spring 
it is indeed a treat ; and it was always a point of 
honour with those who had gardens to see that the 
host of the whist-club-night was amply provided. 
" Gentlemen," cried he at the head of that social table, 
often enough, " Gentlemen, I need hardly tell you 
where that celery comes from, I am sure. Nothing 
but Kostellan could produce its equal." It was but 
a natural consequence to take an extra half-glass of 
port to the health of the jovial owner of that property, 
as a vote of thanks, on such a hint. 

And port — good genuine port merits a word of notice 
en passant, does it not ? They vow it is not the same 
port in quality which used to reach them thirty years 
ago. I cannot say, but generally the tap was good, 
often very fine. Not that strong, heavy clerical fluid 
which does duty on nine out of ten dining-tables in 
England ; but rather a lighter, less fruited, and more 
delicately-bodied vintage ; yet as true a port as would 
satisfy the requirements of the old Koyal Duke. 



278 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

Formerly this wine, coming over from Portugal in the 
returning fish-vessels, could be had here for eighteen 
shillings a dozen ; in these degenerate days it runs 
from fifty to sixty shillings ! There was a good trade 
then from St John's to many other ports with this 
return produce for their fish, but it has entirely 
disappeared, and only enough is introduced for the 
small demands of the colony itself. Newfoundland 
port was once a byword in the world, as well known 
as Cliquot or Allsopp. In Newfoundland alone now 
are its virtues still cherished. 

Enough of the " choicest" of our merry suppers, and 
enough. See Michael has the glasses round, while the 
rosy wine itself is thrust ignominiously to the centre of 
the table. The kettle sings a "charge your glasses, 
gentlemen, quick, quick, quick ! while the water 's hot, 
hot, hot, gentlemen V in a tune which loosens all 
tongues to a chorus with him. For twenty brief 
minutes there is a babel of jokes and laughter round, 
while sly shots upon weak points, whether of fish or 
potatoes, fly like hail across the table. Ehew ! our 
grey-bearded senior member has finished his one 
magisterial rummer, precisely as the silver tongue of 
the pendule behind him notes the first half hour of a 
new day gone ; he is slipping silently away behind our 
host's chair, with his hand deprecating the syren's call 
for "just another thimblefull, sir." It is a signal for 
departure, as little to be neglected as the order for a 
well- disciplined regiment to "lodge arms" and break- 
off on parade; so there is a scramble into pea-coats, 



" The Odd Trick and the Rubbery 279 

goloshes, and mufflers on the spot. Ah ! what a blast 
of cold is that which searches through the door, as the 
outer porch opening reveals just a glint of the eternal 
white covering of earth. It must be faced, there is no 
use shirking it. Wolfe and I, with any one else going 
our way, plunge heavily into it head downwards, chat- 
ting the evening over again as we slowly plough home- 
wards. Never by any chance in the streets of the town 
do we ever meet a living creature, hear the bark of a 
dog, or the whine of a restless child. The houses are 
sealed by double windows, and animal life is deep 
under shelter from the pitiless breath of nature. By 
the Baker's Corner we say " Good-night! good-night ! " 
Sometimes in the deep silence around I have fancied 
the dark South Side Hills across the frozen harbour 
have whispered solemnly again those friendly farewell 
words. 

Once during the gusty political winter of 1863, 
when parties, pretty evenly balanced, were trying their 
strength together in the Assembly, our little club was 
nonplussed by the absence of its members, many of 
whom wrote M.P.P. after their sponsorial titles. Dis- 
sension ran so high that they could rarely slip away 
before nine or ten o'clock ; while one Monday night 
Michael had actually announced the supper without 
the M.P.P.'s putting in an appearance. This might 
be nothing extraordinary in Westminster ; but in 
Fish- and -fog -land, where primitive and seasonable 
hours for business matters still prevailed, it certainly 
was. So, on leaving our entertainer's roof, we voted 



280 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

that we should go up to the House and find out what 
was stirring. It must surely be a matter of deep and 
vital importance as could warrant the half of such a 
goose as we had just left being discussed in the 
kitchen; and yet, prepared as we were for something 
picturesque, the imagination fell short of the reality as 
the great scarlet folding-doors silently relapsed behind 
us. In front we beheld a large well-lighted hall, railed 
off for about one-third of its length from the oi polloi, 
whose chosen representatives, divided into ministry and 
opposition, or ins and outs, by the simple test of reli- 
gion, were ranged at little desks on either side, with a 
long table for the lawyers in the centre. Above all, at 
the far end, raised three steps over the floor, sat the 
black-gowned Speaker in a commodious arm-chair, his 
face gazing intently at the ceiling, and his thoughts far- 
away m the land of dreams, probably fancying that he 
was cleaving the clouds on the back of a wild goose, — 
a natural suggestion caused by the noisy declamations 
on his right, and the pleasant supper he had missed. 
Down beneath the hollow of his little desk, where his 
knees usually had refuge, the Premier, leader of Ke- 
sponsible Government, was snugly stowed away with a 
candle reading "Aurora Floyd;" while the nearest 
member had his feet on his desk far above the level 
of his head, in an attitude very tempting to any one 
with a flexible cane " handy to him." The rest of the 
honourable members on both sides of the House were 
asleep in the various attitudes usually adopted when 
enjoying that luxury in a chair, with one notable 



" The Odd Trick and the Buhler." 281 

exception on the opposition benches. This gentleman, 
gifted with stentorian lungs of about a thousand 
horse-power, aided by the bass of a tremendous fist 
upon his desk, resounding in strokes of about thirty to 
the minute, like the booms of a distant gun, was doing 
his best to weary out the Government by a side-wind 
in speaking against time upon some unimportant mo- 
tion. It was on the proposition that in future, to 
prevent imposition, no further reward should be paid 
for the skins of wolves (which it was shrewdly sup- 
posed were purchased and brought to the colony), that 
this chosen lawmaker thus held forth during the first 
five minutes of our entrance : — 

11 And now, sir" (this to the snoring speaker), " I 
ask you, I ask you (thump) to put this momentous 
question to this Honourable House, whether, under the 
mighty considerations submitted to them (thump) by 
honourable members, whose voices, silent now, may 
still be heard in other forms (thump) ; whose voices 
have been heard, I say, in defence of this amendment ; 
I ask, sir, shall it be said, shall it go forth to the 
world through the press, through the talk and scandal 
of this amphibious community, nay, through the 
medium of the gallant officers (here he winked at 
us) who, I perceive, have just entered the strangers' 
gallery, that we, the responsible Parliament of this 
colony, ever consented to the wolf wearing his own skin 
(thump), when the poor out-harbourman, the starving 
fisherman (thump, thump), the slave, the victim 
(thump) of the present rotten (thump), nefarious 



282 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

(thump), undermining system (thump) of the Govern- 
ment, sir, now in power (thump, thump, thump), 
requires that skin for his own use and that of his 
little ones (thump) ? And, sir, I will maintain before 
these unprejudiced strangers, I will call upon them 
hereafter to bear me witness (thump), nay, I will 
call upon high heaven itself to record its testimony 
(thump), that nothing that I have heard from the 
cringing lips of any honourable member of that 
Government (thump) has given me the faintest idea, 
or left a particle of wisdom on my mind (thump), 
that the wolf would prefer wearing his own skin, when 
that instinct, which nature has engrafted in the 
bosoms of all wild animals, is teaching it that its 
warmth, its comfort, are necessary during the rigours 
of our winter to the children of the poor starving 
fisherman (thump). Howl, howl, ye winter winds ! 
weep, nature, weep ! Vain man it is alone who out- 
rages thy solemnity ! vain man who, dressed in a little 
brief orthodoxy, plays such artistic tricks before his 
idols as makes the — the — very angels smile in pity ! 
Ah ! the honourable member starts, he twists, he 
writhes, he is uneasy in his dreams ; what mean those 
hollow moans? does he think the angels are bending 
over him, and taking his confession ? And is he 
lamenting, as well he may, how he, a veritable wolf in 
sheep's clothing (thump), year by year at the head of 
the long processions of temperance bands, on the first 
of May, loudly proclaims the sin of touching a drop of 
honest liquor, which is not in the commandments, and 



" The Odd Trick and the Rubber." 283 

yet if a stray ship comes in of a Sunday, and wants 
her coals quick, sets to work with a will for the 
dollars — the dollars, sir (thump), regardless of the holy 
day, which I believe is (thump, thump) mentioned in 
the Commandments ? I ask you, sir, would the wolves 
do this ? Do they strain at camels, and swallow 
gnats? or vice versa, whichever it is, for it comes to 
the same in the end. Would the very ourang-outangs 
who take the young negresses — but what do I see? 
Ah ! something rotten in the state of Denmark ! does 
the good lady wish to know where her liege lord is ? 
Ah ! a message from the Upper House, which he 
knows too well to refuse ! Is the honourable member 
sleepy, and is he about to retire to his domestic 
happiness ? will he really not stay a little longer ! 
Alas ! poor Yorick ! Ah ! what sight is this which 
meets my gaze ? Horatio, did his highness say — 
angels and ministers of grace defend us ! " 

The bold speaker checked his torrent of wordy 
nonsense for half a minute, fairly bewildered by 
astonishment, as well he might be. A boy had 
brought a note to the Premier, but not a summons 
home as the wild orator hoped. It was to inform 
the leader of the government that his mattress and 
blankets, for which he had sent, were outside. Forth- 
with the Premier closed the fascinating pages of Miss 
Braddon's clever story, blew out his candle, and 
released himself from the little cupboard under his 
desk. Whispering to an honest, old, white-bearded, 
wintry member, who, stroking that beard and laughing, 



284 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

followed him out ; in a few minutes they were seen 
returning into the House with mattresses over their 
shoulders, which were thrown down by the little desks, 
and prepared for a night's occupation. Several other 
Government members followed their example, which 
plainly said to the silly tactics of the Opposition, " talk 
away as much as you like now, we 're very comfortable, 
and mean to see you out, my bucks." And see them 
out they did with a vengeance. We of the whist- club 
went home to our quiet beds, with a joke or a sigh 
over the folly of Kesponsible Government in a com- 
munity of a hundred thousand souls, or thereabouts, 
three quarters of whom were ignorant, superstitious 
fishermen. We thought an hour or so more at most 
would finish up the wolves, and their butchers too. 
But next day, at one o'clock, on passing by, the 
doctor's merry voice, as he rattled along in his gig, 
cried out — 

" That fellow is still speaking. Go up to the House 
and look at the sight ! " 

" What ! the same -member still at it ? impossible ! " 
" Fact ! never stopped since yesterday four o'clock ! " 
"Is it possible! well, there'll be pickings for you 
out of this." 

" Ah ! ah ! likely enough ; good morning ; " and 
away went the cheery gleaner of five-pound notes 
from young husbands at a swinging pace round the 
Baker's Corner. 

We went up to the House at once. The area in 
front was half filled with the rowdies of the city, while 



" The Odd Trick and the Rubber!' 285 

the people's gallery was crammed with that ilk. They 
more than fancied the Government was to be beaten ^ 
and the out-harbour folks would see it recorded in large 
capitals that the reaction had set in at last. He of 
the giant lungs, whom we had left speaking at mid- 
night, was still hammering away his incoherent stuff; 
not with the force of Nasmyth smashing at a coil of 
iron at a white heat, but now rather with the still, 
deliberate, measured blows by which the same pond- 
erous engine will drive a nail slowly into a beam. 
The hand which imitated the hammer was now leaning 
heavily on the desk for support, and the whole frame- 
work of the man seemed loosened. Still he talked, 
talked, talked, though no one listened. The mattresses 
of the members were rolled up under the desks ready 
for another night if necessary ; and the Premier's 
unshaven face wore a look of invincible determination. 
He certainly had the best of it. He had had his sleep 
and breakfast after a fashion, and the odds were heavy 
against his antagonist. We nodded to our friends 
among the members, looking miserable enough at their 
desks, and smiling as they cast up their hands and 
eyes in disgust at the situation. However, two hours 
after that, passing by the House again, we saw a 
stream hurrying out of the doors, and learnt, as they 
rushed past, that it was all over at last. The giant 
had just caved in from pare exhaustion, and the 
Speaker instantly calling a division, the matter was 
settled in a trice. The wolves saved their skins, so far 
as the reward for them was henceforward to be nil; 



286 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

and, no doubt, he of the hammer-lungs would have had 
a hardish tight to save his own had he been left to 
the mercies of the indignant matrons whose last night's 
rest he had so unceremoniously disturbed, and who 
received now the extraordinary explanation of the 
cause from their disgusted spouses. 

This was a farce, a miserable farce, played to annoy 
the Ministry by an Opposition, many of whom were 
heartily ashamed afterwards of their share in the 
transaction. But it was followed very soon by another 
rumpus, which demonstrated in a more serious way 
the low ebb to which sound public opinion had fallen 
(if, indeed, respect for such a thing existed at all), 
and placed the legislators of Kesponsible Government 
in a far from enviable position. The story may briefly 
be told thus : — 

The Upper House of the Colony is composed, let us 
say, of Messrs A, B, and C, and called the Legislative 
Council; the lower section, styled the Assembly or the 
Commons, we will call Messrs D, E, and F ; and note, 
that all the members inclusive, from A to F, are 
merchants, lawyers, and business men of Fish-and- 
fog-land. We may further note that, as a general 
rule, A, B, and C do ten or twenty times as much 
public work as D, E, or F. But it came to pass 
that on the formation of Kesponsible Government the 
Lower House claimed and received a certain amount 
of sessional pay to cover expenses of travel, time lost, 
&c. &c. ; and further, that in process of time the 



" The Odd Trick and the Rubber." 287 

Council, or Upper House, claimed the same gratuity. 
Then the Assembly said, " No ! no ! no ! you represent 
the Lords, and must work for nothing but honour." 
"That's all very fine," replied the Lords; "we are 
nothing but business-men, the same as yourselves ; we 
give a great deal more time to the public service than 
you do, and if you are paid, so ought we to be." Then 
cried the Commons again, " No ! no ! no ! we 11 see 
you pretty well confounded first ; not a halfpenny will 
we vote you." So it went on for several years, until 
at last A, B, and C said to D, E, and F, " Now, take 
heed, gentlemen, we will stand no more of this non- 
sense, if you do not vote our money with your own, 
we will throw out the Contingency Bill in toto ; you 
shall swim in our boat for the future, and do the public 
work for honour and glory alone." But D, E, and F 
laughed, saying, " They will never dare do it ; we will 
bring the whole country down on them." However, 
to their unbounded astonishment, A, B, and C kept 
their promise, threw out the Contingency or Salary 
Bill to the Parliament in 1859, and caused ~D, E, and 
F to return home to their desks and fish-flakes blue 
with disgust. In spite of the loud and angry denuncia- 
tions of the stump oratory in the out-harbours, the 
Council quietly did the same the following year, 
making the Commons blue, doubly distilled. They 
felt it was time to compromise ; and to save their 
dignity, in 1861 they agreed with the Council to 
submit the matter to the Duke of Newcastle, the 



288 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

Colonial Secretary in England, by whose judgment 
they consented to be bound. A few months later the 
Governor received the Duke's reply as follows : — 

" Downing Street, lbth February 1862. 
" Newfoundland. No. 146. 

" Sir, — I do not feel that it would become me to 
undertake the office of an actual arbitrator between 
two branches of the Legislature ; but, since they have 
desired to know my sentiments, I have inquired into 
the practice in the principal neighbouring Provinces, 
and I find that in Canada, Nova Scotia, and in New 
Brunswick the members of the Legislative Council 
receive precisely the same personal allowance as the 
members of the Assembly. In Canada this course is 
fixed by a permanent Act ; and in New Brunswick it 
is at, the commencement of each Parliament enacted 
for the whole duration of that Parliament, so as to 
extend to the Council the courtesy of settling the mat- 
ter once for all, and preclude its annual discussion. 

" Seeing such powerful and uniform precedents, 
and considering that a perfect equality in respect of 
personal allowances of the present nature would seem 
best calculated to maintain the desirable harmony of 
feeling between co-ordinate branches of the Legisla- 
ture, I am bound to say that my opinion would be in 
favour of following the same course in Newfoundland. 
— I have, <fec, 

(Signed) Newcastle." 

" Governor Sir A. Bannerman, &c. kc. &c." 



« The Odd Trick and the Rubber." 289 

Well, gentle reader, what do you suppose was the 
course of the representatives of the people under 
Responsible Government upon receipt of that letter?' 
You may probably reply that, as between gentlemen 
the matter was settled, not admitting of a doubt ; but 
in truth you will be sadly mistaken — sadly mistaken. 
There is not much to crow over in such an error, for 
even the old Governor, long accustomed as he was to 
certain gross feeders on political offal, could hardly 
credit his ears, on the common principle of fair-play, 
when he was told that the matter was again going to 
be treated in the Lower House as if the appeal to the 
Duke as umpire had never taken place ! It turned 
out to be quite true. Man after man had the unblush- 
ing bad taste to rise and vote against the Council, on 
the plea that the Duke had given only an opinion, 
and not a decision ; though they were perfectly aware 
that in law he had no right to decide such a question ; 
and that, moreover, they had desired his sentiments 
on the open right or wrong of the question. In vain 
the Premier pointed out this view of an arbitration 
as the only honourable course for them to adopt; in 
vain the Speaker nobly supported his friend and old 
colleague ; in vain did four other members raise their 
voices against a storm of chicanery and unworthy 
pleadings which, chequered with personalities, fell like 
a hail-storm from the majority. It was not a ministerial 
question, so that all creeds were free to vote as they 
pleased, and it resulted that the Council's just demand 
was again throw T n out. The division left it on record, 

T 



290 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

upon the great photograph of the strange deeds of the 
world, that, as it was well said, there was but one sun 
in Asia, two kings of Brentford, three tailors of Tooley 
Street, four snobs of Liverpool, five heads of John the 
Baptist (all original), so now to this famous numerical 
roll shall be for ever added (and to be mentioned with 
all honour and distinction) the six gentlemen of Fish- 
and-fog-land ! * 

Did they gain by all this unworthy chicanery ? No- 
thing, absolutely nothing, but utterly lost in the end of 
the game both the " odd " trick and rubber ; for the 
Council quietly stood their ground, and threw out the 
bill for the salaries of the Commons again and again, 
until these needy legislators were starved into equity. 
If the noble Colonial Minister kept a diary, some future 
Macaulay may find perchance amid its notes strange 
comments on the wisdom of entrusting small unfledged 
communities, unfettered by any fear of a wholesome 
public judgment on their acts, with the cares of self- 
government, in these complicated times of rapid pro- 
gress and maturing civilisation. 

* The Attorney-General, The Speaker, The Colonial Secretary, The 
Receiver- General, Dr Winter, and Mr Leamon. 






CHAPTER XVII. 

FAREWELL. 

LORY to God in the highest, peace on 
earth, good will toward men/' so rung 
out, clear, musical, and pleasant, the bells 
of the Catholic Cathedral, on a New- 
Year's morn, which sun and wind had both agreed 
to bless. At least so many of us interpreted the 
distant harmony, as we made ready to give that greet- 
ing to friends and neighbours after the good old French 
custom, possibly introduced from Canadian sources 
here. Pity that it is rapidly fading out ; left, indeed, 
principally to younger men, who take that opportunity 
of introducing their merits or wishes for future acquaint- 
ance to the ladies of their class. Yet there were still 
the official visits of ceremony which we, as in duty 
bound to our elders and superiors, prepared to pay ; no 
great tax upon one's patience to such pleasant friends ; 
to say nothing of the merry gliding over the crisp white 
mantle of earth to the music of a thousand bells, cross- 
ing from house to house on the same errand as our- 



292 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

selves. Crossing too over the chequered marble in the 
hall of Government House, in our visits of respect to 
the venerable chieftain, who, in his red morocco chair 
of state, looked like one of the Northern Vikings, a 
tower of strength and power, come back in the form of 
a rare old British gentleman. 

" Thank ye, thank ye, gentlemen," said he, as we 
offered our congratulations; "I'm pretty weel for an 
auld man ; but 1 11 throw a line with ye, Maister Wolfe, 
after the trout at Cape Kace, if this confounded cough 
will leave me strength enough in May. Ye see, I'm 
just treating it mysel' with a little plain water, and a 
squeeze of orange in it. Have you seen her ladyship ? 
Weel, then, go and see her, and yell find a glass of 
something better to drink our gude Queen's health ; and 
be sure you admire her ladyship's hyacinths, for she's 
vera proud of them. Good-bye, good-bye." 

So we passed out, giving place to others, to the 
brighter parlour of Lady Bannerman, where, as the 
Governor said, the flowers in the gay sunny windows 
claimed due admiration ; though by no means casting in 
the shade the grandeur of her ladyship's new cap and 
velvet dress, before which we bowed with all solemnity 
and respect. 

Our own good Bishop gave us next his word of good- 
will, and we soon found ourselves under the portico of 
his honour the Chief-Justice, elbowed by a troop of 
young Irish aspirants for legal honours, with a few who 
had already made their footing on the slippery bar. 
Like his friend the Governor, Sir Francis sat in his big 



Farewell. 293 

morocco chair, doing full dignity to the ermine, spite of 
the merry twinkle of his eye, when he whispered — 

"Be off now with your blarney, and get a glass of 
something with Lady Brady. You see," he continued, 
" I've a bad cough, and I'm just after moistening my 
throat with a little water, with a squeeze of orange in 
it/' 

Singular identity of beverage ! fragrant too with a 
delicate aroma ; but I fancied rather that of the lemon 
than of the orange, and the light colouring due to the 
distilled juice of the cane. A mistake on our parts, no 
doubt. 

And yet it was singular again — very singular, it must 
be confessed — when we stood in the parlour of the jolly 
old President of the Council, that he, with his gouty 
feet swathed in flannel, should have remarked — 

11 And what will ye be taken, mee dear fellows ? is it 
poort ? You're right, there is worse than that in the 
world. You see, I 'in just moistening mee lips with a 
drop of water, with a squeeze of orange in it ; help your- 
selves." The Marchioness's make-believe with Dick 
Swiveller was quite a joke to this ! 

Our last visit— last but not least — was to the great 
man of Fish-and-fog-land, — the hearty, excellent, yet 
warlike Roman Prelate, at his palace under the shadow 
of his great cathedral, on the heights commanding the 
city. As it happened, we were just in the nick of time 
to see him in all his glory. Yes, there on the steps of 
his front door, in long, black robes, adorned with the 
massive gold cross and chain, with attendant priests 



294 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

a round, the Bishop stood — a fine, genial, well-favoured 
man — about to receive the address of congratulation 
from the " Sons of Fishermen " or the Irish Society. 
These, at the time, were defiling with flags and banners, 
music and symbols, in long snake-like procession before 
him. As the leaders reached the presence, a halt was 
called, and, for a moment, silence reigned ; while we, 
beneath a buttress of the cathedral, watched rather 
curiously the proceedings. At length his Lordship 
(the first Fisherman of the colony) thus spoke : " Well, 
boys, I 'm glad to see you all. I hope God will give 
us a good year ; and this day year I '11 see you all as 
well as I do now, and all that/' 

Procession. — "Ay, my Lord, that's it. God bless 
your Lordship ! * 

Then came a pause for at least a minute, during 
which not a sound could be heard. 

Bishop. — " Well, we Ve a fine day, boys ; and, per- 
haps, that 's a sign we are going to have a fine year ; 
and 1 11 tell you what, boys, we want a good fishery 
this year ; we do, boys, and all that." 

Procession. — " Ay, ay, my Lord ; we do, we do. 
God bless your Lordship ! " 

Another pause : now for the address no doubt. 

Bishop. — " I think, boys, God will send us a fine 
year, for He knows we want a good fishery, and all 
that." 

Procession. — " We do, my Lord, we do ; true for you, 
my Lord ! God bless your Lordship ! " 

Pause again : silence deeper than ever. 



Farewell. 295 

Bishop (at last). — " Well, boys, I 'm glad to see your 
band 's in fine tune ; and I 'm glad to hear it, and all 
that." 

Procession. — " Thank your Lordship. God bless 
your Lordship ! " 

Another pause : silence supreme. Both parties evi- 
dently exhausted of what they had to do or say. At 
length, to our infinite relief, a man with a banner cried 
with startling suddenness — 

" Three cheers for our Bishop ! " 

The long, human serpent wriggled and roared accord- 
ingly, with good- will and heartiness ; yet it wanted the 
true ring for " all that." 

But the Bishop smiled, dangled his gold cross, and 
bowed three times graciously. 

Now, thought somebody, they are going on. JSTo ; 
there was another terrible pause. 

At last another bannerman cried — 

" Three cheers for our priests ! Hooray ! Hooray ! " 

Then the priests bowed very low and solemnly ; the 
band struck up, and the tail of the procession alone was 
left on the white snow. 

Well, it was not very edifying ; indeed, there was a 
touch of the ludicrous in the affair; neither was the 
Bishop oratorical, or apt to seize the passing opportunity 
for good advice, or even flummery with his people. But 
it was exactly what was expected and desired between 
both parties. They simply wanted to recognise each 
other in the flesh, and so pass on. His people knew 
the Bishop was their master, and, moreover, that he 



296 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

loved them ; the good Bishop knew he was their master, 
and was happy in the knowledge. What need of mere 
waste of words in a state of such perfect understanding 
and satisfaction. How many a public man, to be on 
such terms with his constituents, would gladly put his 
oratory and " all that " in his pocket ! 

Then to his Lordship (John Thomas, gg), we paid our 
respects and congratulations as was right and proper. 
A hearty reciprocation and a glass of champagne were 
his return for the compliment, to say nothing of taking 
us round his noble library, the finest room in the colony. 
His reception-room was handsome, adorned with statuary 
from Italy; but for himself and the priests who lived 
with him, the little room below with its deal chairs 
and common delf, would have probably been scorned 
by a bagman. So strange is the contrast which he 
presents in the attributes of his daily life and the 
profession he upholds. Utter self-denial of personal 
luxuries, with the uttermost farthing of power and 
authority in all temporal matters with his fellow-men ; 
a good man in his own private path ; an unscrupulous 
antagonist to all political opponents. He is but true to 
his order after all ; the man himself we may sincerely 
respect, but the pride of priestcraft we must equally 
deplore. 

Alack ! for pleasant friendships formed by a soldier 
in his varied service ; alack ! for the new faces he is 
ever meeting when he would willingly keep the old. 



Farewell. 297 

Before the revolving cycle of the new year came round 
again, our orders carried us suddenly away from scenes 
we had now learnt to love so well, to begin another act" 
in the great drama of life. The young man setting out 
in a military profession, in the first burst of eager 
youth, anticipates with joy all the friends he will make, 
all the countries he will visit, all the varied aspects of 
nature which will change before him. It is very plea- 
sant for a few years ; but as the fire of youth cools the 
pleasure palls, until at last, when sober manhood 
crowns the edifice, the order to change is generally, 
even in a bad station, a signal for regret ; pain to bid 
adieu to old familiar features and friends, pain to think 
of the irksomeness of removing these necessary duties 
elsewhere. One may think, besides, that the good 
things present cannot be replaced at all. The broad 
blue expanse of ocean opening out at Logie Bay ; the 
bubbling trout-streams trickling between the hills ; the 
broad breezy barrens, fruit-ladened and fringed with 
copse ; the glorious heathy walks over hill and dale ; 
the sport without fear or license, not to be beaten in 
its own way any where ; the very dogs who follow us 
with love, with love returned ; the plants we have 
raised and tended ; the voices we have been accustomed 
to so many years ; our Sunday strollings round the 
margin of the dark blue lake ; the great fleecy clouds 
condensing on the hills, like armies drawn out for 
battle array ; the Indian summer, with its sober sad 
reflections ; our genial gatherings in winter : are all — 



298 Lost Amid the Fogs. 

and many, many more — associations which we scarcely 
hope to renew. Brighter skies and brighter scenes may 
await us in other lands ; fruits and flowers spread their 
choicest temptations before thirsty admiring eyes ; but 
nowhere else can man grasp the hand of his fellow 
man with greater trust, or with greater confidence in 
a hearty welcome eat his neighbour's bread. This it 
was which smoothed down every rough path for us, 
and lighted up the dreariest days of winter with gleams 
of gladness, towards which brighter suns or happier 
climes, by these unaided, might have wooed and charmed 
in vain. 

It came at last, that fatal order to " move on." All 
our little belongings passed into other hands ; and one 
bright morning in June we stood on the deck of the 
steamer, gazing up to the noble cliffs as she passed 
through the Narrows out to sea. From the corner of 
the little battery, far far up directly over our heads, 
some men waved a flag ; and a woman held up a baby 
in token, I suppose, of love to another woman who had 
done her, and many others, some silent deeds of kind- 
ness. The bluff shoulders of the rocks soon shut out 
from sight the harbour, the city, our own house, the 
landmarks of past years ; while before us spread the 
mighty Atlantic, like an unknown page in our future 
lives. Far out at sea the great white clouds from the 
Gulf Stream came rolling up before the gentle wind ; 
and when, about an hour afterwards, we entered their 
chilling folds, the purple cliffs of Fish-and-fog-land 



Farewell 299 

passed for ever out of sight ; lost amid the eternal 
mists which, as the smoke of a battle-field, proclaim 
the silent conflict of the vast elements of nature, 
striving together under mysterious immutable laws for 
the cycles of change, and the progress of earth towards 
a never-to-be-attained maturity. 




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